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Logos In The 2016 Election

Decent Essays

During the 2016 elections Americans were faced with the decision of choosing either
Donald J. Trump or Hillary Clinton to run the country. Both the Democratic and Republican party had present the people with unfavorable candidates, each for their own reasons. In this election some Americans felt that there was no good choice that could be made. In order to establish support and a following Bernie Sanders tried to take advantage of this situation and released his political ad titled “Real Change”. In “Real Change” Sanders sets out the win the hearts, minds, and votes of the American people by using Ethos appeals surrounding military action, veterans, and the corrupt nature of Wall Street, and by using the structural metaphors of battle and …show more content…

Sanders is also trying to send a message to upcoming voters, by appealing to Ethos, that he will not be bought by wall street and that their interference in current and past election cycles has not tainted his campaign. The narrator states that Sanders is “taking on Wall Street and a corrupt political system”. The New York Stock Exchange building is shown from a low angle to make the building appear large and intimidating. Then other skyscrapers along Wall Street are shown from the middle of the street, looking straight up as the camera pans along. This is also to make the buildings that house top 500 companies seem intimidating and daunting. Sanders is stating that he is not a fan of how Wall Street and these companies interfere and buys elections, taking some of the power away from the majority of people by having elected officials push forward their secret agendas. Sanders wanted the voters to know that he was not in Wall Street’s pocket which is an Ethos appeal to voters who believed that Wall Street controlled all of the candidates and that no of the candidates had the interest of the majority in mind.
Looking deeper than what is clearly stated, Sanders uses the structural metaphor of battle lines to separate himself from his competition and from ideas and institutions he knows the people find unfavorable. SIL defines structural metaphor as “a conventional metaphor in which one concept is understood and

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