Hillary Clinton’s campaign has tried many things to connect with young voters — YASSS Hillary T-shirts, expertly deployed Twitter in-jokes, having Clinton make a cameo on the cult comedy Broad City.
Watch: the DNC makes the case that Trump is a bully from an ’80s movie
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But a short video the Democratic National Committee aired during the last night of its convention in Philadelphia might be its best effort yet, thanks to a smart combination of Hollywood nostalgia and a simple yet effective political message: Donald Trump is a bully.
The video begins by showing clips of villains from famous ’80s movies — A Christmas Story, Karate Kid, Home Alone, Back to the Future (whose Biff Tannen was famously based on Trump) — and then segues into Trump using the exact same language at press conferences and media appearances.
It then transitions into a scene of a little girl asking Clinton how she will deal with such mean-spirited people as president, to which she responds, in part, “We shouldn’t let anybody bully his way into the presidency.”
The message isn’t exactly subtle — but it’s a smart nostalgia play for a campaign that has sometimes struggled to win over millennial voters. Plus, it might be the only political campaign video in history to feature the phrase “phlegm wad.” If that’s not a score for Clinton’s camp, we don’t know what is.
By Dylan Matthews
