Right vs Left: Populism


In opposition to the Occupy Wall Street movement, I’ve chosen an excerpt from a 2016 Donald Trump campaign rally. This speech given by the Republican nominee was delivered at a campaign rally on October 16, 2016 in West Bend, Indiana. Like most campaign speeches, it aims to rouse the electorate and persuade them to vote in a certain direction. Specifically, this excerpt addresses the issues of corruption within the “system”, jobs and opportunity, and safety and equality. 

Excerpt Text:

“I’m not part of the corrupt system. In fact, the corrupt system is trying to stop me. I’ve been paying my own way. The voters in the Republican Party this year defied the donors, the consultants, the power brokers, and choose a nominee from outside our failed and corrupt and broken system.

The other party – the Democratic Party – nominated the personification of special interest corruption. The Democratic Party rigged the nomination to give it to Hillary Clinton, thus giving the soul of their party this year to the special interests.

I am running to listen to your voice, to hear your cries for help. The quiet voices in our society, not the loudest demonstrators, need to have their demands heard.

Jobs. Safety. Opportunity. Fair and equal representation.”

 

In other words, Trump is declaring “vote for me in the election because I’ll fix America and all the problems within the system”. 

When I was considering companion artifacts, I narrowed it down to three options: anti-globalization protests, the Bernie Sanders campaign, or the Donald Trump campaign. All of these movements share the same populist fervor that Occupy Wall Street created. I wanted something relevant so I then narrowed it down between Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. Since my speech topic is politically left, I choose the Trump speech because it provides a stark contrast. I thought it would be interesting because the members of both movements feel that they are victimized and powerless to America’s big institutions. They are both upset by what they see as a declining quality of life. However, their political alignments could not be more different. Choosing these two topics, I wanted to explore the commonplaces behind the movements and where they differ in interpretation. 

As of now, I want to focus on analyzing common places and enterprises that the people of each movement share. I’ll then discuss how that has colored been colored by the conflicting ideologies. One main contrast is that Occupy Wall Street was leaderless, while the Trump campaign clearly wasn’t. I plan to use this contrast to discuss the effectiveness of the movement. As for the Greek word bundle, I think I’ll try to do a who did it better and how. 

3 thoughts on “Right vs Left: Populism

  1. Really well done! This is already a pretty solid framework for an essay–the structure is clear and comprehensive, and it looks like you have a lot of material to work with, which should make your job easier.

  2. Despite living in a world filled with political heat and disagreement, there is a lot we actually agree upon. Those agreements, however, are quite meaningless when the intent is to win the vote or support of others. To be successful in today’s world, you don’t need to better outright better than anyone else, you just need to be different. When we accept these differences that others have, our community as a whole will come together. Im interested to see what your opinion is on these powerful movements.

  3. I think the mix of political ideologies underlying the methods used to spread your two artifacts civic messages will create a super interesting set of comparisons. I’m really interested to see what you come up with especial when comparing the effectiveness of the messages.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to toolbar