Subtitle this one “Things that go bump in the night during campaign season.” A new doctored Instagram video created by Bernie Sanders’s campaign team shows the socialist presidential wannabe supposedly sneaking up behind Donald Trump at a campaign rally and making the kind of gesture with his arms that usually accompanies a shout of “Boo!”
The caption reads:
Want to really scare Trump? Help us show the strength of our campaign to defeat him — chip in before our fundraising deadline at midnight at the link in bio.
Some commentators on the Right have grumbled that the footage, which was taken from an actual incident where Trump was rushed by an actual assassin, is tasteless.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
The Bernie Sanders campaign is using footage of an assassination attempt against Trump as a political ad.
This is a direct incitement to violence by @BernieSanders. pic.twitter.com/7Eax6lmFdR
— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) July 1, 2019
But the bigger flaw in my view is the low production values, which gives the entire enterprise the look and feel of something you might encounter in a cheap amusement park funhouse. The fact that the 77-year-old Sanders appears seated and slides into the video frame from one side makes it look almost as if he is in a wheelchair, reminding voters of his advancing years. His facial expression, moreover, calls to mind the archetype of the curmudgeonly old grandpa who young children are frightened to go near for fear he might throw his arms up and shout — as Grandpa Sanders does in this ad.