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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   37124 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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You know, it is perfectly possible that both of these things are true: 1) the veto by Dukakis disqualified him from the presidency and it was perfectly fine for Bush campaign to make that argument; and 2) the manner in which the Bush campaign used the issue indeed inflamed racial tension and/or was meant to to appeal to racial prejudice. Your post includes lots of information to determine whether #1 is true, but nothing re whether #2 is true.

Here are the only two ads Bush ran on the issue as far as I'm aware.

Willie Horton ad

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y

Revolving door ad

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Io9KMSSEZ0Y

Note how in the second one, the campaign goes out of it's way to find white criminals for it's footage.

It also shows shows is how much discretion states have with sentencing and prisons versus feds, even for very serious crimes and dangerous offenders. This is why fed prisons are always worse.

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