Politics doesn't need more fakery. AI is bringing it anyway. | Opinion

In July 2024, Elon Musk created a stir when he reposted on X a deepfake campaign ad of newly minted presidential contender Vice President Kamala Harris, in which she "spoke" about her own incompetence.

It was clearly a parody and, in my humble opinion, hilarious.

Not everyone saw it that way.

Before long, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom was promising to outlaw such manipulated political posts. He followed through, although the ban was short-lived after courts in 2025 found it an unconstitutional affront to free speech. (Since his law was overturned, Newsom has enjoyed sharing fake images and videos. But I digress.)

Fast-forward two years, and artificial intelligence has exploded in popularity, becoming a major feature of the midterm elections campaign season.

And it’s not just random social media users or satire sites like The Onion and Babylon Bee embracing the technology. Political candidates themselves, or their allies, are getting in on the act.

That has me wondering: Just because you can, should you?

Spencer Pratt as Batman and James Talarico as a pro-trans Julie Andrews? Alrighty then. 

Plenty of people seem eager to find out.

Former reality TV star and recent Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt drew national attention in part because of the clever ads promoting his campaign. Some of the most talked-about were AI-generated and created by supporters.

One of these cinematic-style ads portrayed Pratt as Batman, saving Los Angeles from California Democrats bent on destroying the city's quality of life.

The ads couldn't get Pratt over the finish line, but they did get people talking about the issues he was raising, including rampant homelessness and the city's lack of preparedness for wildfires.

Speaking of superheroes, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers got his turn earlier this month. After a woman who works for a Rogers campaign vendor posted birthday wishes alongside an AI-enhanced photo that made him look considerably more buff than he does in real life, the image went viral and spawned a wave of memes. Rogers and his campaign smartly leaned into the moment.

Other uses of AI in political messaging are less entertaining and more ... weird.

A group called Citizens for Sanity released an attack ad targeting Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico. In it, Talarico wears an apron and channels Julie Andrews from "The Sound of Music." He "sings" to the tune of "My Favorite Things" about wanting to make more children transgender.

Another GOP group used AI in March to show a remarkably lifelike Talarico "reading" old social media posts that were, in fact, real.

All this 'cartoonery' won't make Americans trust politicians any more

The AI surge comes at a time when Americans' trust in Congress is already near record lows.

Playing make-believe isn't likely to help. Regardless, expect to see a lot more AI-generated campaign content in the months ahead.

“They’re very cheap to make, and they can be incredibly high quality and visually attractive,” Republican strategist Jason Cabel Roe told me. “And I think part of the problem is everybody is so inundated with content from so many different platforms in their life that breaking through gets harder and harder.”

That, he said, is why traditional campaign ads are likely to become less common.

“For those that continue to talk directly to the camera and represent themselves, there’s going to be value and that authenticity will matter,” Roe said. “But I think we are going to see less of that in the short term and more cartoonery.”

Call me old-fashioned, but I'd rather hear directly from politicians asking for my vote. I don't need to see them as Batman, Julie Andrews or action heroes. I need to know what they believe and what they plan to do if elected.

Campaigns have every right to post these parodies. But if voters are already struggling to tell what's real, turning politics into a cartoon seems like a strange way to earn their trust.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques