Well, this is... unsurprising. We are now in the muckiest thick of election season, so you know what that means. Blame China! For everything. In a fairly typical move out the campaign playbook, this racist, xenophobic, fear-mongering political ad for Missouri's state attorney general race goes there, with America's farms at stake.
The subtitled 30-second spot features a rather nefarious-looking Chinese businessman bragging to another in Mandarin about how he was able to buy a Missouri farm after state senator Kurt Schaefer, a Republican candidate for attorney general, helped changed a state law allowing foreign ownership of farms.
"Now we own thousands of acres in Missouri," the businessman says, arms raised, "and can buy more."
Take a look:
The ad is paid for by Tea Party Patriots. A similar ad is paid for by State Conservatives Reform Action PAC.
Meanwhile, another ad suggests that Schaefer's competitor, Josh Hawley, supported terrorism by providing legal work to a Muslim client. The ad rather obliquely refers to a case handled by a firm where Hawley worked that defends religious liberty. The firm defended a Muslim murder convict's right to grow a beard for religious reasons while in prison. The firm says Hawley didn't work on the case, though that doesn't stop the ad from claiming that Hawley "worked for terrorists who killed U.S. soliders." (Yes, the ad spells "soldiers" incorrectly.)
Classy. Both ads have little to do with what either candidate actually stands for. The strategy here clearly relies on reckless scapegoating and scare tactics, where both candidates are pinned to stereotypical anti-China and anti-Muslim rhetoric, preying on fears at the expense of entire communities.
Of course, both campaigns deny any such thing.
Scott Dieckhaus, Schaefer's campaign manager, tells St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the anti-Hawley ads are "not in any way xenophobic or intended to cause fear of any group of people. Our ads point out... Hawley has chosen defend people who have done evil things."
Hawley's campaign spokesman Scott Paradise said, "These ads are run by a third-party group and we are not associated with them." Well, isn't that convenient? Someone else did your anti-China fear-mongering for you.
More here: Asian-American groups decry 'xenophobic' Missouri political ads
