Bernie Sanders Characteristics Of Deagoguery In Democracy

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The political campaign has dominated modern media. From bumper stickers and pins on bags to commercials and billboards, it seems like everywhere you look there is a presidential candidate asking for your vote in one form or another. Rallies draw in crowds of thousands of people and manage to shut down part of a city. The media has been consistently offering full coverage on everything a candidate does. Even a candidate 's Twitter feed is fast tracked onto prime time television news. At this point in the election candidates are fighting to be the nominee for their political party. As of now, the current front-runners for the nomination are Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party and Donald Trump for the Republican Party. However in the democratic …show more content…

Demagoguery can roughly be defined as a way to spilt views into two drastically opposite positions (“Characteristics of Demagoguery, Revised.”). One aspect of demagoguery that Sanders uses is naïve realism. The scope that Sanders use to his support the world gives off the impression that Wall Street and others like it are actively harming citizens directly and that all large corporations are nasty and evil. Ignoring whether or not this is factual, Sanders gives no room to argue for corporations. The situation Sanders shows the people is an “us or them” type making the only real safe decision is to side against corporations. Because the majority of the demographic that Sanders has targeted is middle class and younger Americans, a general dislike towards corporations is reasonable. But by having an open hatred for corporations and Wall Street Sanders has accidentally framed himself to be a hateful person losing credibility and emotional support from voters. This then costs Sanders votes and delegates, and if his strong dislike continues, the nomination. Besides a naïve sense of realism and hatred, Sanders is also playing the victim. With a background without having great economical prosperity or influence Sanders has had experience as an underdog. Yet as much as the people admire the character that went against the odds and won, those characters lacked the support of others. If Sanders had more supporters then he would lose that trait. A final trait of demagoguery that Sanders uses is that he reduces complex problems into simple solutions. Often times the numbers and guts of solutions are omitted in rallies and commercials to keep the people interested in the spectacle of the events. Few facts are widely broadcasted on how taking money from Wall Street is going to fund tuition and other government programs that Sanders hopes to put into

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