AAs ads attacking Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris began running in battleground states this week, a familiar theme emerged: “She let an MS-13 gang member go, who then murdered a father and his 's two sons,” the narrator warns. Make America Great Again Inc. PAC Advertisement, referring to her record as San Francisco district attorney. “She agreed to free another felon who then committed murder.” In other words, Trump supporters are making good on their plan To “Willie Horton” Harris – refer to TV commercial from 1988 This changed the politics of criminal justice for decades.
What does it mean for “Willie Horton” political candidate?
In 2015, The Marshall Project dug deep into the history of the infamous ad and spoke at length with William Horton himself. At the time, it wasn’t surprising to ask whether this particular type of advertising — sensationalizing individual bad behavior by people released from prisons or jails (often people of color) and blaming it on individual candidates — had ended. In the wake of the public killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Freddie Gray in Baltimore, and the national reckoning on mass incarceration and police brutality, politicians new, temporary, willing explore bold criminal justice reform. But the past is never truly past, and 1988 is beginning to echo through the halls of 2024. There was enough evidence to charge him with a crime; a few months later, he did commit a triple homicide. It's unclear which case the “felon who subsequently committed murder” is referring to.
Here are three key things to know about the history of “Willie Horton” attack ads:
“Willie Horton” was the subject of a 1988 political advertisement produced by supporters of then-Vice President and Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush.
William Horton served a life sentence for murder in a Massachusetts prison, then was furloughed and never returned. While on the run, he committed brutal burglaries and rapes. Bush is running for president against Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, and the ad blamed Horton's crimes on Dukakis' furlough policies.
“Dukakis is not just against the death penalty,” the narrator intones, “He allowed a first-degree murderer to get a weekend pass from prison.” A grainy black-and-white photo of Holden, with heavy eyes and a shaggy beard, appeared on the screen. The ad never mentions Holden's race, but there's no need to: At a time when violent crime rates are at historically high levels, Holden's image plays into white fears and deeply held racist stereotypes.
Later, Horton told me that the photo was taken after he had spent several weeks in solitary confinement, recovering from a gunshot wound and multiple surgeries. Looking at that photo, “I would be afraid of myself,” he said. He also said no one had ever called him “Willy.” He believed that renaming him was a way for political actors to further stereotype black Southerners and make him look stupid and uneducated. “I never lived up to the name they put on the painting, which was 'Willy,'” he said. “That's not me. That's not even my name.
Critics say the ad launched the modern negative presidential campaign.
The ad was effective: George H.W. Bush came from behind to sweep the 1988 presidential election, winning 40 Electoral College states. Time magazine called Horton “Busch Most Valuable Player”. Before “Willie Horton,” poor outcomes in the criminal justice system were rarely fodder for political attacks. Less than 20 years ago, a man on leave from California's prison system in the 1970s murdered a police officer on the watch of the then-governor. Reagan was later elected president in a landslide, with Bush serving as vice president. At the time, Reagan defended the state's furlough program, saying more than 200,000 people had successfully been furloughed from prison, but “Obviously you can't be perfect”.
Following the 1988 election campaign, it was widely accepted that if a person committed bad behavior after being released from prison, the person responsible at the time of release would be held politically accountable. “Obviously, the Willie Horton ad was a very important lesson for politicians,” said Ronald Weich, who served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 1988 and later served as counsel to several senators. told The Marshall Project in 2015.
The ad's impact shows “how race and fear play a role in America.”
Republican strategists have long recognized the power of using coded language to instill fear in white voters. Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, acknowledged as much in a 1981 interview with political scientist Alexander Lamis. In 1954, Atwater says, politicians could and did use the n-word publicly, but by 1968, “it hurt you. It backfired. So you'd say 'mandated busing,' 'states' rights.' Wait and stuff like that.
This strategy worked seamlessly into 1988. Simon, “If we talk about these issues over and over again, we will win.” Simon later wrote that he didn't need to say out loud what “values issues” meant to Southern voters. “It worked because race and fear played a role in America in 1988.” Political scientist Tali Mendelberg says this type of message is only effective if it remains implicit wrote in her book Advertisement about Willie Horton. Mendelberg writes that because white people don't want to see themselves as racist, the message loses its power once it's revealed.
Jesse Jackson Publicly called Willie Horton a racist In 1988, Atwater responded: “I don't even think a lot of people in the South knew what race Willie Horton was.” But it was soon generally acknowledged that the ad was Naked racial appeal. A Follow-up advertising The ad shows a more racially diverse group of people in prison jumpsuits walking through a revolving door at a prison bar, while a narrator intones: “His revolving door prison policy gives first-degree murderers weekends off,” but It doesn't dispel the feeling that these ads appeal to white voters' ugliest fears.
IIt has become clear that the role of criminal justice will be front and center for both parties in the 2024 election. Harris served for decades as a district attorney and state attorney general; tilt hard Documenting her record as a senior police officer who hunted down lawbreakers and fraudsters. She has positioned herself in stark contrast to Trump, a self-proclaimed “law and order” candidate who was recently convicted of dozens of felonies and found responsible for fraud and sexual assault.
But will “Willie Horton” advertising be as compelling in 2024 as it was in 1988? We won’t know until November.