“He Gets Us” is a Christian organization that has run numerous, major advertising campaign to put Jesus in commercial breaks. Specifically, they’ve spent about $2 billion on running commercials about Christianity and Jesus aimed at making Jesus seem approachable and bringing people into the church. As part of that campaign, they’re un adds during Super Bowls, including investing about $20 million on two Super Bowl commercials that ran during the 2023 Super Bowl.
Both portrayed Jesus as compassionate towards people regardless of their political stance. Some of the ad campaign’s other commercials even lean towards being liberal in outlook, painting Jesus as a refugee or migrant. And, regardless of how people want to interpret the ads politically, the main message of them is “love”.
According to their website, He Gets Us is a “movement to reintroduce people to the Jesus of the bible and his confounding love and forgiveness. We believe his words, example, and life have relevancy in our lives today and offer hope for a better future.”
So, the ads aren’t even conservative, much less “fascist.” But, predictably, that’s exactly what Rep. AOC said they were, posting, “Something tells me Jesus would *not* spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign” on Twitter.
Just as predictably as AOC calling something she doesn’t like fascism were the flood of angry comments that were posted underneath her tweet, with people saying things like: “Agreed. Of course he would also not support unlimited abortions, transing kids, open borders or socialism. So since you are talking about things Jesus wouldn’t do, I wanted to add a few other since you seem to support all of these things he wouldn’t support 🤷🏻♂️”
Others added comments like “Evidently, the Jesus ad did not sit right with her majesty 🧐😏”, “Which ad is triggering you so I know to buy they product?”, “How, exactly, did the ads promote fascism in any way? They were promoting Jesus Christ. You can get angry that Alliance Defending Freedom contributed to funding the ads, but what does that have to do with fascism?”, “Something tells me we shouldn’t look to @AOC for our theology and spiritual guidance”, and “Don’t you advocate for the disarmament of civilians, the criminalization of speech, and political prosecutions?”
Conservatives had different perspectives on the ad as well. Some thought it was a powerful message that America needed to hear, while others thought the message pushed by it was leftist and not really Christian. The Sly Show, for example, wrote, “Liberals are outraged and fuming over this Super Bowl commercial that talks about JESUS loving the people you hate. Liberals are full of hate and they just got exposed once again to be angry over this ad.”
Similarly, Turning Point USA founder and conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk argued that the ad was leftist in nature, and that the “He Gets Us” campaign generally was “left-wing, social justice messaging,” not true Christianity. Watch him explain that here:
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