Election Day is less than a week away, but you don’t even need to own a calendar to know that. By watching just a few minutes of television, the onslaught of political attack ads is clearly signaling that the midterms are almost here. But if Trevor Noah had his way, we’d never have to bear witness to yet another sinister-sounding voiceover telling us everything that’s bad about each of this year’s candidates — awful or otherwise.
As The Daily Show continues airing from Atlanta, Noah shared his utter disdain for attack ads. “I watched TV for 10 minutes last night and I saw 30 minutes worth of ads,” he joked. But he wasn’t kidding when he said that “the thing that stuck out to me was how most of them were mean as sh*t.”
“If you only knew Stacey Abrams from attack ads in Georgia,” Noah said, by way of example, “you would think she was Darth Vader combined with Thanos combined with that a**hole who cuts you off in traffic. Pure evil!” It’s for that reason that The Daily Show host thinks that attack ads should be banned altogether, and he made a strong argument for why that might improve the strength of the candidates we see running around the country:
If you ask me, I say attack ads should be illegal. I mean it… Not campaign ads, attack ads. I’ll tell you why: First of all, I think it’s because they only drive up polarization and hate. That’s what they do, right? And secondly, politicians should be earning your vote by telling you what they’re going to do, not just by sh*tting on other candidates. Just tell me what you’ll do if you want me to vote; don’t tell me about the other person.
‘Cause you realize, they’re auditioning for the job. We don’t accept this sh*t in any other job. There’s no other job where you can apply for it and then your resume isn’t what you do, it’s just a list of other reasons that the other people suck. You can’t do that anywhere else. You can’t just be sitting there, like: ‘Oh, what are my strengths? Well I think you should be focusing on Anthony’s weaknesses. That guy types with his index fingers. So when do I start?’
As Noah sees it, attacking your opponent isn’t “campaigning,” nor is it how candidates should be winning votes. “It shouldn’t be a part of democracy,” he said, noting that attacking the opposition isn’t a savvy political move — “it’s basically the same strategy every R&B song from the ‘90s used.”
You can watch Noah’s full argument against attack ads above, beginning around the 2:30 mark.