As November approaches the rat race of US presidential elections is coming to an anticlimactic climax.  One thing that i’ve noticed is pervasive in this election cycle is how public image is portrayed through words on both sides of the political spectrum.  Within the fast paced culture it’s no surprise that the meticulous details of individual policy often gets drowned out by whoever can appeal to the masses in the loudest and flashiest way, and since it’s often too inconvenient to actually witness a candidate's behavior this loudness is portrayed through tert exploitation of language.

I’ll start off analyzing Trump- that’s probably what you’re expecting anyways…  Trump represents the jingoistic ultra right in a lot of ways;  his blatant racism fuels his sadly leading poll numbers, because he makes vocal the subconscious fears of apparently a lot of bigots.  At one point he voiced his plan for “a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the US.”  The hate speech exploits fear in his voters and calls out a scapegoat to “encompass both the dark forces that threaten “civilization” and the fears they arouse.” (The -Ism Schism: How Much Wallop can a simple word pack?)  His refusal to abide by sensitive political terms like other politicians brings to light the true atrocities of american culture instead of “making the problems disappear” (the word police)

Another candidate, on the other side, is Hillary Clinton who has focused a lot of her campaign trying to appeal to the younger voters.  One of my favorite examples is this seven second snapchat story) https://youtu.be/DxfMUEf9otQ?t=3 .   She changes her “lingo” (i feel awful using that word)  in the same way that Ontario elementary teachers had to censor their violent language (i.e. take a stab at it to go for it) to not seem like a bad influence to children.  Hillary tries bury her pedantic image in some sappy snapchat story that tries to communicate that she is a hip person who identifies with hip young people.  She can’t just ask for a vote in the way Pinker says you can’t just say “gimme the salt” (words don’t mean what they mean), she has to develop and negotiate her argument.