Daisy 2: The Sequel is Always Worse

President Richard Nixon once remarked that “People said my language was bad, but Jesus, you should have heard LBJ.” Lyndon Johnson was infamous on Capitol Hill for his profanity-laden tirades, and one shudders to imagine his reaction to the “Daisy 2” ad making the rounds on the internet.

Released yesterday by a group calling itself “Secure America Now,” the ad copies the imagery of its original: a 1964 campaign advertisement that LBJ’s campaign ran one time against Republican hardliner and presidential contender Barry Goldwater. In the new iteration, a young girl sitting in a field bears witness to a nuclear explosion, followed by an announcer warning against the Obama administration’s failure to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The most criminal thing about the so-called Daisy 2 ad—aside from its policy message being a reckless endangerment of American national security—is that it runs completely contrary to the cautionary message of the original advertisement. The ad’s implication of imminent war is intended to derail the critical work that the Obama administration has been doing to prevent an Iranian bomb.

The original Daisy advertisement is arguably one of the most controversial political maneuvers in American history. It ran on only one occasion; the idea that a campaign would heavily imply the death of a child on screen and that Goldwater would purposefully start a nuclear war provoked outrage. Even when the ad was pulled, it was replayed multiple times on many news stations—undoubtedly contributing to LBJ’s landslide victory.

This reboot of the ad is just as inflammatory, but for all the wrong reasons. The announcer cautions that failing to deal with Iran means that we as a nation “risk losing the freedom we cherish,” as if an Iranian invasion is all but imminent. One can imagine the follow up line:  Thank the good Lord for open carry, because the Persians are days away from storming the beaches!

In perhaps the most factually inaccurate part of the argument, the ad insists that “President Obama has had opportunities to stop [Iran], but he is failing.” There is no mention of Iran’s eliminated highly enriched uranium stockpile, no commentary on the most comprehensive and productive inspections regime the world has ever seen, and no acknowledgment of the halted construction of nuclear sites and hardware—all direct results of Obama’s approach of tough, principled, and multilateral diplomacy.

This is all to say nothing of the rest of the site, a true hatchet job that will make history majors and area studies specialists everywhere cringe in disbelief. Issues are conflated, terms are haphazardly misapplied, and to say that liberties are taken with words is to put it very mildly. This is truly a perfidious exercise in narrative sabotage—the logical conclusion of Republican wailing about Democratic leadership being feckless and weak and the insistence on shooting first and (maybe) asking questions later.  

Here is the central irony at the heart of the issue: the original Daisy ad was meant to cast a harsh light on the belligerent, conservative machine that was thundering toward war. Now, that same imagery is being used to fuel that machine. It implies that a preemptive strike is the only thing that can keep our children safe, where it is in fact the only course that leads to another costly war in the Middle East.

The only way forward where Iran does not build a nuclear weapon is through a negotiated settlement that brings Tehran back into the global community. Any preemptive strike will give the hardliners the raison d'être Iran’s weapons program is missing and lead to an inevitable conflict that really could threaten the U.S. and her interests. Agreements on enrichment limits with international eyes on the ground to enforce them, however, can keep our men and women out of harm’s way.

Maybe, in the end, LBJ would appreciate the savvy of those who launched the sequel to his infamous advertisement. At its core, both ads rest on unfulfilled assumptions and wildly pessimistic worldviews to produce a panicked, visceral reaction. But even though fear-mongering may be a part of our political past, it doesn’t have to be a part of our future.