A pair of ads allegedly created by President Trump’s father, Fred, for a 1970s mayoral bid circulated widely on the Internet this week. They were ads, one titled “Dope Man” and the other “Real New Yorkers,” presenting two depictions of the city during that decade. The first showed a black drug dealer wandering the streets of New York, culminating in a shot of two frightened-looking women with a “Paid for by the Committee to Elect Frederick C. Trump” banner at the bottom of the screen. The second was more optimistic — though the “real New Yorkers” depicted were only white New Yorkers.
If the ads were real, they would certainly be among the more racist ads in American political history, even by the standards of the 1970s. But they weren’t real.
Both ads have been removed from the Internet, but not before garnering a significant amount of attention on social media. They appear to be the work of a video shop called Historical Paroxysm, which presents “found footage from alternate realities.” In other words, they create archival-looking footage mirroring alternate histories. The firm first posted the two Trump ads back in October, both to YouTube and to Vimeo. (The original videos have been removed from both sites; a duplicate is shown above.)
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