{"id":80677,"date":"2026-10-30T05:55:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T10:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/30\/a-rare-red-line-in-deeply-cynical-times\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T05:55:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T10:55:06","slug":"a-rare-red-line-in-deeply-cynical-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/30\/a-rare-red-line-in-deeply-cynical-times\/","title":{"rendered":"A rare red line in deeply cynical times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a particularly brutal cycle for attack ads, but voters are responding with humanity. Plus: on the campaign trail with a Democrat in Kansas<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/sep\/04\/sign-up-to-the-stakes-2026-your-weekly-guide-to-the-us-midterms\">This was originally published in the Stakes 2026, a newsletter about the midterm elections. Sign up to get it in your inbox<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There\u2019s a campaign moment I can\u2019t stop thinking about. It happened shortly after the campaign of Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican nominee for governor of Ohio, released a shocking attack ad featuring the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton.<\/p>\n<p>In the ad, as many readers will know by now, Acton\u2019s mother accuses her daughter of lying and tells Ohioans not to vote for her. Acton, 60, says she has not spoken to her mother since she was 12, when she and her <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/oct\/20\/ohio-democrat-vivek-ramaswamy-ad\">brother<\/a> were removed from their mother\u2019s custody after their stepfather was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cleveland.com\/crime\/2026\/10\/amy-actons-stepfather-fled-a-rape-charge-prosecution-was-far-from-guaranteed-in-the-1970s.html\">arrested and charged<\/a> with raping her. Acton says she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/10\/20\/us\/politics\/ramaswamy-campaign-ad-acton-estranged-mother-donna-arthur.html\">last saw her mother<\/a> at the courthouse, where her mother came to support her husband as her daughter testified against him.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/oct\/29\/a-rare-red-line-in-deeply-cynical-times\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a particularly brutal cycle for attack ads, but voters are responding with humanity. Plus: on the campaign trail with a Democrat in Kansas This was originally published in the Stakes 2026, a newsletter about the midterm elections. Sign up to get it in your inbox There\u2019s a campaign moment I can\u2019t stop thinking &#8230; <a title=\"A rare red line in deeply cynical times\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/30\/a-rare-red-line-in-deeply-cynical-times\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about A rare red line in deeply cynical times\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80677\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}