One Letter: Images of Mo(u)rning in America

The Lincoln Project’s “Mourning in America” ad has gone viral, racking up over two million views as of the publication of this post and gaining attention from the president himself. It is one of few instances during the Trump presidency that an organization of Republican majority has put themselves not only in opposition to him but also critiqued his performance during this pandemic. The construction of this ad deserves recognition and analysis on its own, but it would be remiss not to recognize the juxtaposition with its clear source of inspiration, “Morning in America,” an ad for Reagan’s reelection campaign in 1984. The two ads are stark contrasts in their values and tones, and nowhere is this more evident than in its imaging.

Both are living records of the ways their creators view their respective eras. Reagan’s emphasis is on preserving paradise, an idyllic America which he helped to construct. The country, under his guidance, sees a bustling economy, families settled and satisfied with their lives, the prospects of vowed love in marriages and citizens raising and gazing up with admiration at the American flag. This footage becomes inextricably interwoven with Reagan’s America, and its sentiment of good prospects and hope is therefore politicized. The people in the camera’s frame are, as Hariman and Lucaites state, “put into a social relationship with the viewer” to encourage voters to again elect Reagan and again choose another 4 years of prosperous and hopeful days. These images see iconic reproduction in Lincoln Project’s much more salient advertisement -- the America shown in this advertisement’s footage is also rife with flags and people in day-to-day life. The most significant difference is the tear of this constructed “social relationship”: images connecting the American people and the flag are absent, as the virus began work on severing them and ineffective politicians like Trump are seen to have finished the job. The emotional scenario constructed in the Reagan ad -- existing already in a good place and striving even further for improvement -- is dashed in the current America.

The Lincoln Project’s position is communicated with unflinching clarity in this ad and the expectations placed by its predecessor and now subverted: the America which we inhabit now is being derailed by its current president rather than being elevated by it. It is a position viewers see not only in the scripted messages and contexts of these advertisements but also in the selected images between them. The emotional break in iconography signals one constant between the presidential elections in 1984 and this upcoming one in 2020: voting means shaping the direction of the country’s future, either in sustaining one ongoing positive presidency or in avoiding four more years of another that could further break down American life.