The Latino Victory Fund came under fire earlier this week for an ad it ran against Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie. The ad began with minority children (including one Muslim) walking along the street, only to become terrified by a truck sporting a Gadsden Flag license plate and flying a Confederate flag in the back because, the implication was, the driver was seeking to run them down. Each of the kids awakens to find it was only a dream, but the viewer is meant to conclude their fears were founded because Republicans are racist.

After the New York terror attack Tuesday involving a jihadi running down his victims with a truck, the Latino Victory Fund — funded in part by George Soros — pulled the ad. Its mission was accomplished anyway.

As Becket Adams writes, “It shouldn’t have taken an act of terror for the Latino Victory Fund to realize its ad was in extremely poor taste, and that it did nothing to lift our political discourse, but we’ll take the small victories where we can find them.”

Three observations:

First, as LVF president Cristóbal J. Alex explained, “We knew our ad would ruffle feathers. We held a mirror up to the Republican Party, and they don’t like what they see.” The second part is garbage and any honest person knows that. But Alex was at least truthful in saying they wanted to “ruffle feathers.” The ad got far more play because of its obnoxious provocation than a more tame ad would have.

Second, the only reason the children in the ad, or any other children suffering Trump Derangement Syndrome, think that Republicans are racist murderers is that their parents and teachers indoctrinate them to think so. This fear is not based on objective reality or fair observation of the real world but of radical leftist propaganda.

Third, like Hillary Clinton’s hateful denunciation of “deplorable” Americans last year, this ad has served to galvanize Virginians to vote … for Gillespie. We’re all tired of being smeared as racist haters, and Virginians who might not otherwise have been keen to vote for an establishment guy like Gillespie are doing so as a way to reject that kind of bigotry. It would be justice served if this ad pushed him over the top for a victory.