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What Makes Politicians Stand Out Over The Rest?

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What makes politicians stand out over the rest? The dictionary defines Demagogue as a political leader who tries to get support by making false claims and promises and using arguments based on emotion rather than reason. A demagogue always has an audience whose judgement he intends to influence. The significance they have in society is that most of the time they represent a specific group of people, whose believes are different from others; they are the voice of specific people. By understanding the strategies used by demagogues we can combat the negative influence these rhetors can have in our decisions. J. Justin Gustainis, an American college professor and fiction writer, wrote a paper explaining demagoguery, its different techniques, and how demagogues use them. One great example of demagogue is senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s speech “Enemies from Within”. During this speech, McCarthy expressed the people’s desired of peace while at the same time he said that they were at war, the Cold War. He demonstrates different techniques of demagoguery which persuaded his intended audience, American society. For this essay, I will be exploring one demagogue characteristic in relation to McCarthy’s text, I will also be discussing one fallacy and how it shows potential weakness, and lastly I will be bringing a more contemporary example of demagoguery to analyze, identifying one characteristic using Fidel Castro’s text. McCarthy’s “Enemies from Within” speech took place in Wheeling,

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