Obama depicted as head of Slave Ship in controversial GOP ad..

[Capitalocracy]

24. I respectfully disagree.

I think it is a racist dog whistle. Racists do tend to have this weird fear of being enslaved or subjugated in some unknown way by the races they hate, and this ad speaks to that. Yes, it's not a historically accurate representation of a slave ship to the U.S. (slaves were chained, not manning oars, as those ships didn't use oars) but historical or factual accuracy has never been a big priority for the GOP anyway.

I see where you're coming from, but I definitely think this will speak to racists, and I'm about 99% sure it was designed to do so. It's the kind of language that not only speaks to a racist audience, but promotes a slide into more overt racism in a more borderline audience who don't want to identify themselves as racist but who are susceptible to racist thinking or hidden racist talking points.