Rhetorical Analysis Of Bernie Sanders

It’s a known fact that over the past 40 years there has been a widening gap between the rich and the poor. The middle class continues to shrink and future generations are facing daily struggles to obtain the basic necessities needed to be prosperous. The causation of struggle is not due to a weak economy, as the American economy is strong and very wealthy, but an inequality of wealth amongst the people. Over the past 2 years 15 people saw their wealth increase by $170 billion. That’s more wealth than is owned by the bottom 130 million Americans. Bernie Sanders is campaigning for presidency and addressing the exigencies Americans are facing. I’m going to analyze fragments of his campaign.
Bernie Sanders is an American politician and United

Sates Senator from Vermont, who is currently running a primary campaign to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidential election in 2016. Sanders began his political career in 1971 as a member of the Liberty Union Party, which is an anti-war and people’s party movement. He was elected mayor of Burlington, VT, and then reelected three times before joining the United States House of Representatives in 1990 where he was a member for 16 years. After 16 years in congress, he joined the U.S. Senate in 2006 and is currently serving his second term. In his last election he won 71 percent of the popular vote.
Sanders’ campaign rhetoric builds on his longstanding communication practices as a representative: over the past 45 years of his political career.

Sanders has consistently fought for progressive issues and has kept to his record. Those issues include climate change, parental leave, LGBT rights, campaign finance reform, civil rights, civil liberties, opposition to war, universal healthcare, and income inequality, the last of which has been his key focus during his presidential campaign. On May 26 in Burlington, VT, Sanders officially launched his campaign for president of the United States. In his announcement, Sanders said, “I don’t believe that the men and women who defended American democracy fought to create a situation where billionaires own the political process.” The rhetoric of men and women soldiers resonates with the American people emotionally and builds strong pathos. Senator Elizabeth Warren welcomed his entry into the race saying, “I’m glad to see him get out there and give his version of what leadership in the country should be.” With Elizabeth Warren not entering the race her “Ready for Warren” organizers have endorsed Sanders. Senator Warren’s endorsement builds upon ethos, it gives Sanders credibility and that credibility continues by Sanders’ campaign is being financed through small donors and he refuses to have a Super

PAC.
This essay will focus on two instantiations of Sanders’ campaign rhetoric about income inequality.

The first is his campaign website. “Bernie Sanders On the Issues,” is a section of berniesanders.com and immediately reads:
“Do we continue the 40-year decline of our middle class and the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else, or do we fight for a progressive economic agenda that creates jobs, raises wages, protects the environment and provides health care for all? Are we prepared to take on the enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class, or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy? These are the most important questions of our time, and how we answer them will determine the future of our

country.”

It continues by explaining that the United States is the richest county in the history of the world, but all that wealth is controlled by merely a handful of people. Bernie Sanders.com is simple and precise. The front page uses pathos by immediately telling the audiences, “Nobody who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty”. Millions of Americans are living in poverty and many more are on the verge of poverty. Americans want their independence. Next it has a box for email address and zip code. The simplicity of being a part of the campaign allows Sanders campaign to involve many with the audience having to give minimal information. Finally, there’s a “Contribution” icon and “Continue to Site” icon. The website continues with simplicity with it stating, “We need your help… They have the money, but we have the people”. The rhetoric is effective in that it puts people before money.
On his campaign website, Sanders frames the issue of Income Equality as a moral, economic, and political concern. According to Sanders’s website the top one-tenth of one percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Moreover, the website states, 58 percent of all new income since the Wall Street crash has gone to the top one percent. Americans are working longer hours for lower wages and we have the highest childhood poverty rate of any developed country on earth. Over the past 40 years the billionaire class has taken the American economy hostage and has hoarded it’s great wealth, while working class Americans struggle to provide shelter and food for themselves and their families.
On September 14, 2015, Sanders made history by going to Liberty University, a conservative Southern evangelical university founded by Jerry Falwell. Sanders started the speech with, “ I believe from the bottom of my heart that it is vitally important for those us who hold different views to be able to engage in a civil discourse,” Sanders said. “It is easy to go out and talk to people who agree with you … it is harder, but not less important, to try to communicate with those who do not agree with us on every issue.” Politicians are the best at creating barriers amongst our political system. Sanders is clearly taking a different approach, regardless of perceptual barriers that come with being