Americans play their politics particularly hard. In Kansas, attack ads from both sides are accusing each other’s Senate candidates of protecting paedophiles – in the Republicans’ case, for voting against releasing the Epstein files; in the Democrats’ case, for allegedly shielding an offender at his church.
But in a country accustomed to low blows, a new TV ad in Ohio has shocked even hardened politicos. Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, a former presidential hopeful, released an advertisement targeting Democrat Amy Acton using her own estranged mother.
“Amy has a serious problem. She is a liar,” Donna Arthur says in the commercial. “She lies about her past. She says she grew up living in a tent. None of that is true. She has lied her entire life. My daughter needs help, and she can’t help you if she needs help herself.”
But Arthur lost custody of her children when Acton was a child, and the two women have not interacted since 1978. Acton has for years said she was sexually abused by her stepfather, and her campaign released records showing he was charged and indicted. The stepfather and Arthur fled the state, Acton says, and he never faced trial.
On Tuesday (US time), Acton’s brother Philip Stearns affirmed these events in a statement released by the campaign. “Our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” he said.
“This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core – a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”
Ramaswamy confirmed late on Tuesday that his campaign produced the ad, and doubled down on its contents. He said he would love for the election to be about substantive issues, but that Acton was refusing to debate him, and had lied about him in her own ads.
The ad was not widely condemned by Republicans. Indeed, it was boosted by President Donald Trump’s son Don Jr, former Fox News host turned independent commentator Megyn Kelly and far-right influencer Laura Loomer, among others.
While the ad might shock, shock is par for the course in modern US politics. After 11 years of Trump – who revels in denigrating his political opponents with deeply personal attacks, names and falsehoods – there are very few red lines.
In Australia, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson belatedly apologised for, and took down, a cartoon video that mocked Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie over her vaginal prolapse. She had initially defended the clip, telling Lambie to “get over it”.
Coalition frontbencher Andrew Hastie – who was himself targeted as a “traitor” by a One Nation cartoon – rightly identified Hanson’s importation of US campaign tactics. “This is the MAGA-style politics we can expect from One Nation if they are elected to government,” he told Politico.
To that, we can add the attack on independent MP Helen Haines, which police allege was intentional. No reminder is needed about the long-standing but worsening problem with political violence in the US, and how much Australia does not want to import that tradition.
It is easy to see why these deeply personal attacks – like the ones in Ohio, or even in Kansas and elsewhere – can filter down and shape individual attitudes or actions. Such tactics play on our base emotions and fears; they are designed to generate disgust and hatred.
Trump held a rally just outside Wichita on Monday. Outside the arena, as is typical whenever Trump appears, a small group of 30 to 40 protesters met the arriving attendees with signs, shouting and, sometimes, abuse.
“F--- Trump, and f--- you for voting for him,” said one flag. Many signs riffed on paedophilia and Trump’s links to Epstein. “My husband’s retired air force – he was not an idiot, unlike you,” one woman yelled at passersby.
Trump fans naturally fire back, and usually, it does not rise above heated exchanges. After the rally, two people told this masthead that on this occasion, there was one physical altercation that had to be dealt with by police.
The intensity of an election campaign does not suddenly disappear after the votes are counted. In the US, over successive election cycles, Americans have become not just deeply divided but convinced the other side is “evil”, dangerous, treasonous, or a variation on that theme. The opposition is almost dehumanised.
In that context, there is no low to which a campaign such as Ramaswamy’s wouldn’t stoop. Defeating the other side is all that matters – besides, the assumption goes, they would do it to us.
Again, Australians need look no further than the US as to where that kind of politics – and the abandoning of moral standards – ends up.
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.