The Trump Team and His Backers Believe in the Power of Advertising

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The election came and went, but the campaigning never ends. Welcome to the new not normal, where the Trump administration invests millions of dollars in advertising to persuade people who have already voted.

Maybe you’ve seen the commercial from the Department of Homeland Security featuring its newly appointed leader, Kristi Noem (the former Governor of South Dakota). The anti-immigrant spot has been running regularly since January.

According to Semafor, the Department of Homeland Security has allocated $200 million to peddle this warning. It looks like DOGE doesn’t see this heavily publicized threat from the administration as fraudulent or wasteful.

Trump’s agenda is also being actively touted by political action committees. Securing American Greatness, a pro-Trump nonprofit group that is not required to disclose its donors, is running the following ad, which sadly plays fast and loose with the facts.

“Tell Congress this is a good deal for America. Support President Trump’s agenda to get our economy back on track,” the ad says. I appreciate the call to action, but is it necessary? Is it genuine? I ask because so few members of his party appear ready to defy the president and defeat his “Big Beautiful Bill.”

“Right now, there’s a huge price to pay by crossing Donald Trump,” said Republican strategist Corry Bliss, who formerly led the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC. “When you combine a 92% approval rating among Republican voters with unlimited money, that equals: ‘Yes, sir.’”

Let’s emphasize two words: Unlimited money. Axios reports that Trump’s “cash-flush political operation has $500 million to spend.” That’s in addition to the money that Homeland Security and the pro-Trump super PACS are spending.

Let’s take a look at the glowing endorsement in this spot from Elon Musk’s America PAC.

“He’s taking on the ruling elite and returning the rule of the people. Under his leadership, we are respected again.”

Excuse me?

Advertising is rarely believable or trustworthy. Ads from every corner of the business world make claims every day that the brand can’t fulfill. We know this and view the ads with a built-in eye roll. But the three ads above, like most things Don Trump, are way over the top. His immigration policy is blatantly illegal and racist. His economic package benefits billionaires only. And confidence in America and the American dollar is at an all-time low.

You can make your ads say whatever you want, and brands do, but that doesn’t mean the ads are moving people to believe or buy. In Trump’s case, it’s interesting that he feels the need to spend on advertising at all when he’s already proven how effective “flooding the zone” is as a media strategy. By being outrageous and unpredictable, he controls the narrative. Congress and the courts do his bidding, and millions of Americans are all in. The ads, it seems, are merely icing on his cake.