I MADE AN AD ATTACKING DONALD TRUMP WITHOUT ALL THE OBVIOUS STUFF

A couple of days ago, NBC News reported this:

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is planning to more aggressively attack former President Donald Trump in the remaining weeks ahead of the November election, a new phase aimed at trying to move the small number of undecided voters her way, according to five Harris campaign officials.

The change is driven, in part, by internal campaign data showing that sharper messaging against Trump could persuade some still-unsure Americans to support Harris, according to three of the campaign officials. The effort is set to include new ads and harsher language on the campaign trail that highlights Trump’s past actions and rhetoric that Harris officials hope will tip these voters away from backing the former president.

Yesterday, Politico interviewed pollsters John Anzalone and Greg Strimple. Strimple, who works for Republican candidates, praised Harris as a campaigner but was also critical of her ads. He endorsed this approach:

... Donald Trump ... is out there reminding everyone why they have PTSD from his four years as president. So if you took Donald Trump out of the picture and sent him to an island, I think you would actually win. The flipside to that is, Kamala Harris is doing a very good job of being the face of the campaign. Her campaign ads are terrible and the Democrats are talking about issues when they should be talking about the fact that Donald Trump is irrational, erratic, out of control, January 6th, all these things — and they’re not doing it. So they’re not focusing on Donald Trump’s negatives. And to the extent they are, they’re implicit, not explicit. I don’t think subtle contrasts work in American politics. Unless you’re taking a two-by-four to the other person’s head, you’re not going to be advancing.

I think the Harris/Walz campaign should be reminding us of Trump's awfulness -- but I'm not convinced that focusing on the usual horrible moments of Trump's political career will get the job done. Even low-information voters have seen it all before: January 6, the attack on John McCain, the Access Hollywood tape, "very fine people on both sides." Maybe a new round of ads like that can work. But I have my doubts.

I'd like to see the Harris campaign remind voters of the everyday obnoxiousness of Trump. He gave us migraines, day in and day out, with his rudeness, his ego, and his whining. The undecideds tend to be people who don't think much about politics. Maybe they need to be confronted with this question: Do you want this again every day for the next four years?

So I roughed out an ad. It has technical flaws, but I think it conveys a message that could reach voters who vaguely remember the Trump presidency as unpleasant but have forgotten just how exhausting it was. (And obviously it was far worse than exhausting for the victims of Trumpism, but I'm trying to reach voters who don't think they were harmed by Trump during his time in office.)

Here's the ad. I uploaded it to YouTube. What do you think?