He used blatantly demagogical language throughout his entire campaign and presidency, and basically claimed that "he alone" knows how to fix every problem.
I tend to be pretty far-left (at least by American standards), but some of the "Bernie Or Bust" rhetoric has gone a bit crazy sometimes; I don't think Bernie Sanders is nearly as horrible as someone like Donald Trump (I voted for him in the primary in 2016), and I certainly don't think he's an outright fraudster, but I do feel like he (and his followers) kind of cozy up to demagogue-adjacent language as well.
I think people really really like the idea that one magical person can and will solve all their problems.
But that's about as far as I'll go towards partisan politics since I don't want to get hellbanned.
I suspect we're ideologically fairly close though I did not vote for Sanders in the primary, I believe I actually skipped 2016 then voted for Warren 2020, but I'd have been fine with Sanders though I agree he did have a fanatical contingent that was a bit off-putting. I don't think he actively encouraged that either.
I've long worked with and even dabbled a bit in sales (which would have shocked a young hotpotamus to learn - it's basically the opposite of my natural inclinations). I was quite bad at it myself - I would often try to explain nuances to people and how they need to invest in their own skill as well as buying a good product. Salespeople who promised them simple solutions that would solve all their problems were far more successful, which was a bitter early lesson for me.
What rankles though is that Trump is so transparently a buffoon - I can't believe it works for him.
> I would often try to explain nuances to people and how they need to invest in their own skill as well as buying a good product.
Yeah, this is (partly) why I was not a good professor/teacher. I don't think I was horrible at it, but I have a very strong compulsion to mention every bit of nuance in what I'm talking about. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but when a student is trying to learn introductory programming, getting into the weeds about how the textbook is "basically right but kind of simplistic because in this case..." really is not the right approach for teaching freshman students. I grew a new respect for teachers who learned to suppress those instincts and teach the simplified stuff.
I almost think that Trump being an idiot works to his advantage. He's so utterly stupid that I think he's completely unburdened by any kind of nuance, and as a result it's very easy for him to speak authoritatively about everything, no matter how wrong he is.
