Bernie vs Trump: Conviction vs Politics

As the US Pres­i­den­tial race heats up, two key ide­o­log­i­cal poles have emerged in the form of Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders and Don­ald Trump. Both can­di­dates have framed an uncon­ven­tion­al nar­ra­tive on oppo­site ends of the polit­i­cal spec­trum — one seem­ing­ly dri­ven by con­vic­tion and the oth­er by pure pol­i­tics, but both chal­leng­ing the sta­tus quo.

Bernie Sanders is the longest serv­ing inde­pen­dent sen­a­tor in Con­gress and one of the few politi­cians active­ly aligned with the core base of Amer­i­can Democ­rats, who are dis­grun­tled with the ‘Hope and Change’ promise of the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion. He has been in pub­lic life for decades and has cham­pi­oned mul­ti­ple social issues. Sanders was an activist dur­ing the civ­il rights strug­gle in the 1960s; as a stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go, he was an organ­is­er for the Con­gress of Racial Equal­i­ty and cam­paigned against seg­re­ga­tion in pub­lic schools. He was part of the leg­endary March on Wash­ing­ton and one of the ear­li­est cham­pi­ons of same sex rights at a time when the issue was polit­i­cal sui­cide. Sanders has a con­sis­tent pro­gres­sive vot­ing record, defend­ing the man­u­fac­tur­ing sec­tor, cam­paign­ing for cli­mate change aware­ness and sup­port­ing leg­is­la­tion to address income inequal­i­ty.

Sanders sup­ports the con­cept of uni­ver­sal health­care; declar­ing it a fun­da­men­tal human right, he is in favour of a ‘sin­gle pay­er sys­tem’, and aims to repli­cate the health­care infra­struc­ture of Aus­tralia and Cana­da in the Unit­ed States. He was also one of the archi­tects of the Vet­er­ans Access, Choice and Account­abil­i­ty Act of 2014, a bill which sanc­tioned $5 bil­lion for bet­ter health­care for armed forces per­son­nel return­ing from Iraq and Afghanistan. Sanders is also one of the archi­tects of the Cli­mate Pro­tec­tion Act of 2013, a bill which levies a car­bon pol­lu­tion fee on man­u­fac­tur­ers, pol­luters and importers, divert­ing funds into green pow­er tech­nol­o­gy. The sen­a­tor is an ardent advo­cate of afford­able high­er edu­ca­tion for Amer­i­can stu­dents, mil­lions of whom face crip­pling debt from stu­dent loans. In fact, his most pop­u­lar pol­i­cy promise is increas­ing tax­es for Wall Street and cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca to fund high­er edu­ca­tion.

On the pol­i­cy front, Sanders is the poster boy for Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers, espe­cial­ly the younger demo­graph­ic. A rad­i­cal approach is the key dif­fer­ence between him and Hillary Clin­ton, the cur­rent front-run­ner, who has adopt­ed a more cal­cu­lat­ing approach in the Pres­i­den­tial race. For Sanders, the poli­cies he has cham­pi­oned for decades are the cen­tral issues in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics today. His no-non­sense demeanour and rus­tic Brook­lyn per­sona set him apart from Clin­ton, whose pub­lic image seems con­tin­u­ous­ly ‘touched up’.

On cam­paign financ­ing, Hillary Clin­ton has received mil­lions from Wall Street via Super PACs while the major­i­ty of Sanders’ cam­paign is fund­ed through pub­lic dona­tions and sup­port from mul­ti­ple labour unions; Sanders has raised over $2 mil­lion through pub­lic dona­tions and is clos­ing in on Oba­ma’s record from the 2012 elec­tions. His appeal among Demo­c­ra­t­ic vot­ers is also dri­ven by his effec­tive use of social media to pro­mote his poli­cies and track record, in a nation where inter­net pen­e­tra­tion is almost 90%. Con­sid­er the first Demo­c­ra­t­ic debate: while the main­stream media gave the win to Hillary, social media gave the edge to Sanders, and he con­tin­ues to dom­i­nate the polit­i­cal space on the web.

With Hillary Clin­ton there is the temp­ta­tion of elect­ing the first female US Pres­i­dent, but Sanders is more of an activist than a politi­cian. It seems the Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty’s mind is with Hillary, but its heart is with Sanders. Their nation­al approval rat­ings are still neck to neck, but Sanders is ahead of Clin­ton accord­ing to the pre-poll sur­vey of the first pri­ma­ry in New Hamp­shire, which goes to
the bal­lot in Feb­ru­ary. The result will be a cru­cial indi­ca­tor of where the two lead­ers actu­al­ly stand.

Then there’s Don­ald Trump, the front run­ner for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion. He speaks his mind and has alien­at­ed mul­ti­ple vote banks via his con­tro­ver­sial state­ments. How­ev­er, he has become a light­ning rod for extreme-right Repub­li­can vot­ers. Trump has called for a ban on Mus­lims enter­ing the Unit­ed States, he has called ille­gal immi­grants from Mex­i­co drug smug­glers, crim­i­nals and rapists, and even said that tough gun laws con­tributed to the recent attacks in Paris. Trump seems to have come as a wel­come relief to those Repub­li­can vot­ers who have been aching to shed polit­i­cal cor­rect­ness. His words seem to have empow­ered those who believe that immoral­i­ty and sav­agery are root­ed in cer­tain cul­tures and that social secu­ri­ty is only for ‘true Amer­i­cans’. A Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling sur­vey of Trump sup­port­ers found that 66% of them believe that Oba­ma is a Mus­lim, 61% believe he was not born in the Unit­ed States and 63% favour amend­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion to end birth right cit­i­zen­ship. As Trump gal­vanis­es the far-right he remains far ahead of his com­peti­tors, as none of them have suc­ceed­ed in con­sol­i­dat­ing the sup­port of mod­er­ate Repub­li­cans.

Trump is a busi­ness­man and his approach to the elec­tions is the same; it is how any­one who wants to storm into the nation­al scene approach­es pol­i­tics. Trump has tai­lored a prod­uct after study­ing con­sumers and he is mar­ket­ing it effec­tive­ly. He does­n’t real­ly believe that Mus­lims should be banned from the Unit­ed States. He has exten­sive busi­ness ties in Mus­lim nations includ­ing Indone­sia, UAE, Dubai, Qatar and Turkey, and even his busi­ness part­ners in these nations under­stand his strat­e­gy. The objec­tive is sim­ple: to win by any means pos­si­ble. Just like the tagline of his show The Appren­tice, ‘It’s noth­ing per­son­al, it’s just busi­ness’

Trump has emerged big­ger than the Repub­li­can Par­ty, but he has dam­aged the par­ty’s image as well. No mat­ter how many times his com­peti­tors for the Repub­li­can nom­i­na­tion denounce him for his views, they are still unable to break his sup­port base. The real estate mag­nate has pledged to spend around $1 bil­lion on his Pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. He believes he is the most pow­er­ful man in the world and now he wants the world to realise it too.

Sanders and Trump are not tra­di­tion­al politi­cians. They are wild cards in their respec­tive polit­i­cal are­nas, one dri­ven by prin­ci­ple and the oth­er by the ambi­tion to win. Sup­port for both can­di­dates is only ris­ing as this elec­tion is becom­ing a clash of extreme ide­olo­gies. Con­vic­tion vs pol­i­tics, virtue vs pan­der­ing, what will emerge as the stronger polit­i­cal force? This Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion will reveal the soul of 21st cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca.