Former President Donald Trump debuted a new web ad on Wednesday night that is chock full of allusions to globalist conspiracy theories and a modified version of his famous slogan. The video is the first ad Trump has shared on his Truth Social platform since President Joe Biden officially kicked off his re-election campaign on Tuesday.
Trump’s ad paints the country under Biden as “a nation in decline” beset by crime, economic woes, “an invasion” from across the border, and a nation facing “the threat of nuclear annihilation.” It also identifies another culprit for these issues.
“The global elitists who send your kids to war, who tell you a woman is a man and a man is a woman, who teach your children their country, their faith, their beliefs are a lie. They have corrupted every facet of American government,” a narrator intones dramatically in the clip.
It’s a mix of culture war red meat and far right conspiracy theorizing. This dire description of “global elitists” is set against a backdrop showing logos from the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset.” That initiative, which was launched in mid-2020 as an effort to reduce economic inequality and promote environmental protection in the wake of the pandemic, has become a fixation among far right activists who have suggested it is proof of a sinister effort by hidden forces eager to control society. Experts have suggested the narrative was successful in part because it builds on what the Anti-Defamation League described as “long-standing and familiar right-wing conspiracy tropes” that have persisted in other conspiracy theories about the “New World Order.”
Along with directly hinting at concerns about the “Great Reset,” Trump’s ad refers to sinister “globalists.” Concerns about “globalism” have been a feature of the far right in recent years with experts suggesting they can serve as a “dog whistle” for racism and anti-Semitism. Despite those concerns, Trump has consistently leaned into the terminology.
In the web ad, which was paid for by Trump’s campaign and promoted by the former president on Truth Social, the narrator presents Trump as the solution to the problems plaguing the nation. The clip concludes with a variation of Trump’s famous “Make America Great Again” slogan.
“This is Joe Biden’s America, failing, weak, but one man, one movement can change all that for us, put America, the middle class first and put the globalists, the elitists, and the corrupt in their place,” the narrator declares. “One man focused on the true owners of this great land, one movement focused on the true priorities: Make America Great For Us Again.”
Trump’s slogan was a staple of his successful 2016 campaign and his first re-election bid that became the namesake of his “MAGA” movement. Over the years, some commentators have suggested it also functions as a dog whistle by evoking nostalgia for a country that was less diverse and equitable. The modified version that appears in Trump’s new ad seems to be a more exclusionary version of the slogan with the implication he wants a return to greatness for one group that he is characterizing as the “true owners of this great land.”
TPM texted Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung to ask who the “us” is that the former president is directing his promises to. Cheung offered a terse response.
“The American people,” he said.
