I used to think there were certain things decent people simply would not do to win an election. Apparently, I gave too many people too much credit. The campaign ad against Amy Acton in Ohio makes me wonder how much uglier our politics can get before enough Americans finally say, “What the hell is wrong with us?”
Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign produced an ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother calling her daughter a liar and questioning her ability to help anyone else. What viewers needed to know was that Acton says she has had no contact with her mother since childhood. Court records, contemporary reporting, and her brother’s account support key parts of the childhood history being attacked. Her stepfather was indicted on a charge of raping her when she was twelve; the case never reached trial after he fled. Records also support the family’s connection to the campground behind her account of living in a tent.
Imagine surviving that childhood, building a life, becoming a physician, and then having a political opponent use your estranged mother to publicly tear you down. I find that sickening. Somewhere along the way, people sat around and decided this was a good campaign strategy. Someone wrote it, someone recorded it, and someone approved it. Apparently, nobody with enough authority stood up and said, “We are better than this.”
And this wasn’t the only attack. Another pro-Ramaswamy ad used old medical records to suggest problems with Acton’s competence and substance use. PolitiFact found misleading omissions, including an early negative evaluation followed by a later evaluation describing her medical knowledge as excellent. That is what selective editing can do: leave viewers with an impression the fuller record does not support.
Then there was the Republican Senate committee’s ad blaming Sherrod Brown’s immigration record for an Ohio crash that killed a family of three. PolitiFact found no factual connection between his votes and the crash and rated the claim false. Relatives objected to their loved ones being used in the campaign. Apparently, even another family’s grief is available for advertising material.
We’ve seen this ugliness before. During the 2024 campaign, Trump spread the baseless claim that immigrants in Springfield were eating people’s pets. He also promoted the false idea that Democrats support killing babies after birth. Those claims turn human beings into monsters in the public imagination, making fear easier to sell than an honest policy discussion.
I’m a progressive, and I expect Democrats to tell the truth, too. My standards don’t disappear when my preferred candidate gets caught distorting something. But exploiting childhood trauma should offend us before we ever check the party label.
The people producing this garbage are responsible for it. Those of us watching have a responsibility, too. When we excuse cruelty because it might help our side win, we teach campaigns to keep doing it. I refuse to believe this is the best we can expect from one another. If winning requires abandoning every scrap of decency, the candidate has already shown me exactly why they should never be trusted with power.
Sources: FactCheck.org: Acton’s childhood and the attack ad; PolitiFact: misleading medical-record claims; PolitiFact: Sherrod Brown crash ad; FactCheck.org: 2024 debate falsehoods.
