Negative Political Ads

I don’t normally stray into politics, but the last election cycle proved to be too much to ignore. No, I’m not going to rant about either side – though there is plenty to rant about against both extremes. Rather, this is a plea from those of us who care about the real issues and look for elected officials to provide real solutions.

Once again, the vast majority of political ads, speeches, debate rhetoric, and even media coverage, focused on why not to vote for the opponent. I don’t know about you, but that is an immediate red flag and turn-off for me. Of course I care about major negatives in any candidate, but when all the candidates do is throw mud at each other none of them are telling us what their plans are for tackling the real issues. I know that is the whole idea – avoid being pinned down on anything, avoid the hard work of governing, and just get into office to preserve your party’s power or diminish the other side.

Tell me what your key issues are and what you are going to do to address them – really address them - and implement solutions that are not beholden to politics. Wouldn’t that be a breath of fresh air. A nice change from the blustering that politicians do to get attention. Even my local town council race was in on the mud-slinging scam with a text from 1 party denigrating the opposition and telling me why not to vote for them. It’s a small town for crying out loud, just tell me what you are going to do to address our local issues. Those candidates immediately lost my vote even though I wasn’t 100% behind the other choices.

In this time of diminishing attention spans and growing aversion to making an effort to understand the key issues and where candidates stand on them, simple sound bites have become the rallying cry of savvy politicians, Designed to play on emotion and distract from rational thinking, such messages can whip up a frenzy of attention for the candidate slinging the most mud – even when that candidate is blatantly lying about the opponent. Even sadder than the number of people who fall for this tactic is that mainstream media rarely calls it out. Ratings are the number one concern so damn the truth and full speed ahead!

My rallying cry is, be prepared for the next election cycle which will surely feature more of the same negative attack tactics. That starts with knowing what issues are important to you, then taking the time and effort to dig deep enough into each candidate’s platform (assuming there actually is one) to learn where each one stands on those issues and what their plans are to solve real problems. All that gets pushed aside with the Bread and Circuses approach that allows candidates to posture and perform without having to commit to any real plan for governing. It’s up to each of us to be literate voters, making our choices based on logical thinking, not emotion. Short of that, the negative spiral will continue to accelerate and bring us all down with it.

www.RetiredandInspiredat55.com  01-19-2026