One of my favourite jokes in The Simpsons concerns the unhinged nature of US political advertising. “Mayor Quimby supports revolving-door prisons,” a growly voice narrates over footage of exactly what you imagine. “Mayor Quimby even released Sideshow Bob, a man twice convicted of attempted murder.” And then, a final disclosure at a noticeably faster pace: “Vote Sideshow Bob for Mayor.”
This was a great joke – but it wasn’t entirely a joke. The real revolving door ad, which featured similar imagery, had been used by the George HW Bush campaign to tar his 1988 opponent, Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, as soft on crime. That in turn was a sort of sequel to the “Willie Horton” ad, in which other Republican operatives had tried to pin the violent crimes of the eponymous African American on Dukakis, governor when Horton was released on furlough. The entire campaign was widely condemned as one long racist dog-whistle intended to terrify white people into voting Republican. It also, upsettingly, worked.
