The Act of Patriotism

Patriotic advertisements try to instill emotions of pride and trust in a candidate. It gives a message that the candidate is devoted to the country and therefore, its people. However, these advertisements only try to win voters on the ideal of “service to the country” and not what they would do to the country. Fear advertisements are a method of advertising that campaigns use to exemplify the negatives of the opponent to hurt them. However, to say one is better that the other is not reasonable.

The effectiveness of either depends on the nature of the time. Fear advertisements work better in bad times and patriotic advertisements work better in good times. Patriotism is devotion to the country, to the people and this has an appeal to the portion of society that takes pride in their country. A person who is severely devoted to the United States and who has served in the armed forces would look at John McCain differently than they look at Barack Obama. Nevertheless, to choose a candidate solely on patriotism does not make sense to me because a worthy candidate just has to be devoted to the people.