Bashing Bernie - Uncouth

One of the more fascinating things about this presidential campaign is how the attacks on Bernie Sanders so frequently reflect the hand of corporate America.

The latest attack on Bernie is that he shouted at Hillary. According to some of the media Bernie is, in general, a loud mouthed boorish and uncouth individual. The implication is, of course, that Hillary is a lady and speaks in a softer more refined, voice. While this has nothing to do with Bernie’s focus on the gross inequality in this society and the responsibility of Wall Street for that condition, it is intended to portray Bernie as uncouth.

This alleged low-class behavior psychologically segues to the working class whose interests Bernie promotes and to his Brooklyn background. Madison Avenue, from which Hillary is drawing her campaign strategy, has long studied the cultural memes in the American public mind and is well-versed in the prejudices that lie there. 

In sum, by simply implying that a lower class man from a working class background has offended a wealthy society lady, one of the old political games, Hillary’s campaign managers are attempting to convert the social issue of gross inequality into a personal issue.

The extent to which Hillary Clinton is relying on the marketing expertise of Madison Avenue and Wall Street is indicated in the following article. It reports that Hillary has added to her advisory staff two marketing experts to rebrand Hillary for the 2016 presidential race. One of these experts manages the Coca Cola brand for a major advertising firm. Her specialty is reviving old brands in danger of becoming passé. Please google the article’s title to get an appreciation of the depth of the shallowness that pervades the American political process and how irrelevant it makes that process to mankind’s unprecedented problems. The article’s title is The making of Hillary 5.0: Marketing wizards help re-imagine Clinton brand.

It is difficult to imagine a greater contrast between Democratic presidential candidates than Hillary’s focus on politics as advertising and Bernie’s focus on eliminating the major sources of human deprivation that untrammeled wealth is visiting upon the American people and the rest of the world.

Bob Newhard