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Former Vice President Joe Biden has become the presumptive Democratic nominee, following the eventual dropouts of his fellow Democratic candidates. However, his latest campaign ad drew very mixed reactions and was criticized for being racist and xenophobic.
Business Insider reports that Biden and his team released their latest anti-Trump campaign ad, showing the President and his administration’s response to the coronavirus. It also criticized Trump for being “too soft” and trusting the Chinese government during the early stages of the pandemic. The ad also makes Biden out to be a supposed foreign policy foil, while a clip of the former vice president shows him saying that he would be on the phone with the Chinese government, demanding that they need to investigate and that the country should be open for them to enter.
However, this ad, despite it clearly being a response to Trump’s anti-Biden campaign ad, making the former vice president out in the same way of being too trusting or “soft” to the Chinese government, many have criticized the rhetoric. Many said it was racist and xenophobic, as it casts the Chinese people or people with Chinese descent in a negative light, calling it an unfair generalization as it also fails to differentiate the Chinese government and its people.
National ACLU deputy legal director Cecillia Wang commented that the ad was causing fearmongering that would result in Asian-Americans getting harassed. Ever since the pandemic broke out, Asian-Americans have faced discrimination and targeted harassment due to the coronavirus having started in China.
At the same time, Trump also released a campaign ad on his side, mocking not only Biden but also former President Barack Obama. The ad was a remix of the Allstate commercial, with Obama’s face superimposed on Allstate pitcher Dennis Haysbert. The original commercial sees Haysbert and his friends watching a basketball game but it cuts to a commercial, the ad being that of Haysbert. As they switch channels, the same ad plays.
In Trump’s ad, the commercial cuts to an old clip of Biden in 2017, where he drifts off-topic during his speech.
Many also criticized the President, especially as this ad came up while the deaths from coronavirus in the United States have reached over 42,000. “1000 Americans died overnight But Combover Caligula who spent 5 years spreading a racist smear against the 1st black POTUS wasn’t born here and was sued by Nixon’s DOJ for being a lying racist, fired by NBC for being a lying racist, tweets this,” tweeted actor and radio show host John Fugelsang.
