December 11, 2007
Cleverness from PBS Posted by Alexander Burns at 11:55 AM EST There’s a funny video making the rounds online. It’s taken from a PBS series, Vote for Me: Politics in America, and it’s a send-up of political advertising, past and present. The authors take some of the attack lines Federalists used against Thomas Jefferson in 1800 and combine them with old film footage to turn them into a twenty-first-century negative commercial. “Female chastity violated. Children writhing on the pike and halberd,” a narrator intones. “It happened in France, but it could happen right here in America if Thomas Jefferson is elected President.” See the video here on YouTube. The ad is an effective satire partly because it so closely resembles real attack ads and partly because the attacks it repeats seem so ludicrous in retrospect. But in 1800 the Federalists really did level these charges and more against Jefferson. “God—and a Religious President” versus “Jefferson—and no God” was the choice John Adams’s supporters gave America. Americans chose Jefferson despite these slurs. It is unclear what divine consequences this choice had. As funny as it is, the PBS clip is also a little depressing, since it’s a good reminder that negative, personal elections are probably here to stay. It would be nice, though, if videos like this one had the effect of reminding us just how silly and transient so many electoral controversies are. If we look back on the election of 1800 and see that it was ridiculous to charge Jefferson with fomenting Jacobinism, just imagine what Americans in 2100 will think of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth. Actually, for a send-up of that crowd, we don’t need to wait for 2100. Just see here and here. If you liked the PBS video, these are worth your time.
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