Dear Commons Community,
The Republican Accountability Project’s “Dictator Donald” video ad (below), which comes weeks after Trump said he’d act like a dictator on “day one” of a new administration, sounds the alarm on the former president’s 2024 campaign. The new ad compares the former president to other well-known dictators.
“He caused an insurrection at the Capitol and sorry to ruin your Christmas but he’s running again,” said the ad’s narrator, who declares that Trump is “openly running as a wannabe dictator.”
The ad goes on to display a Truth Social post from the former president who, in December 2022, called for the “termination” of articles of the Constitution.
“Trump said he would terminate the Constitution so he could be president again,” the ad’s narrator said.
“Do you know who also did that? Mussolini, Chávez, Pinochet – all of them shelved their Constitutions to centralize power.”
The ad later states that Trump plans to “purge tens of thousands of civil servants” from the government to replace them with his loyalists if he’s elected to another term.
“Authoritarian Viktor Orbán used the same tactic to dismantle Hungary’s democracy,” added the narrator before noting Trump’s “very real” chances to win the 2024 election.
“The alarm is going off, everyone needs to wake up. We have a choice between protecting our democracy or letting Trump destroy it.”
The Republican Accountability Project said it plans to run the ad nationally via CNN and MSNBC.
The spot, part of a six-figure ad campaign, is set to run in a number of swing states – Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – on the Hallmark Channel and during TBS’s marathon of “A Christmas Story” over the holidays.
The group looks to run the ad starting Friday and through next week.
The Republican Accountability Project’s latest ad joins a number of its other spots aimed at Trump and GOP lawmakers who have enabled the former president’s 2020 election lies such as Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Tony