Bernie Sander's 2019 Democratic Socialism Speech: Is He Trying to Be a Politician or a College Professor?

Bernie Sanders, US Senate Photo

Earlier today I blogged about Harry Truman's hard-hitting 1948 Labor Day speech, so let's compare his language against Bernie Sanders' June 2019 Democratic Socialism speech. Sanders' crowd – the sexistly-named Bernie Bros – think he's terrific. I've always been disappointed. Bernie yells too much; his ideas are half-baked, and he doesn't always make a lot of sense. 

Today, I'm going to zero in on Bernie's word choice: how he expresses controversial, hard-hitting ideas in the dull, lifeless language of a university professor droning through a stuck-up convention presentation. No amount of yelling compensates for his failure to speak in Trumanesque, simple, blunt terms.

Let's start with his introduction, where he states his thesis:

"In the year 2019 the United States and the rest of the world face two very different political paths. On one hand, there is a growing movement towards oligarchy and authoritarianism in which a small number of incredibly wealthy and powerful billionaires own and control a significant part of the economy and exert enormous influence over the political life of our country."

Look at the words: "Oligarchy?" "Authoritarianism?" "Significant part?" "Incredibly?" "Exert enormous influence?" Ordinary people don't talk like that. I don't talk like that. After years of writing for academic publication, I have tried very hard to unlearn how to write like that. But anyone who has gone to an academic convention to hear a neo-Marxist scholar talk about a historical event hears words like that for 15 or 20 minutes at a stretch. That's fine if you're speaking to a small audience of like-minded scholars, but it doesn't mean much to the public at large. It is not a public speaker's job to send the audience to the dictionary.

Let's compare that against the words in Harry Truman's Labor Day speech: he told his union audience that if Republicans won, "You men of labor can expect to be hit by a steady barrage of body blows." Clear, sharp, and vivid. You could almost hear the boxing gloves slapping into your helpless flesh. Not at all like the way we professors talk when we are communicating with one another. Not at all like Bernie

So, let's go back to Bernie.

"And despite an explosion in technology and worker productivity, the average wage of the American worker in real dollars is no higher than it was 46 years ago and millions of people are forced to work two or three jobs just to survive."

I can only imagine how Truman and his speechwriters would express this: maybe something like "Machines steal more and more of your work.  Your wage after inflation is the same as 46 years ago. You can't even support your family working one job." Or something like that. Not a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about "technology and worker productivity." Who gets excited about that?

Or, look at this from Sander's speech:

"In 2014, in McDowell County, West Virginia, one of the poorest counties in the nation, life expectancy for men was 64 years. In Fairfax County, Virginia, a wealthy county, just 350 miles away, life expectancy for men was nearly 82 years, an 18-year differential."

I grew up in Fairfax County. Plenty of middle-class and upper-middle class homes. But Sanders' word choices? "Expectancy?" "Differential?" Does a tired worker come home and say to his or her family, "Our lifespan expectancy has poor differential?" Of course not. Why not say this instead? "In 2014, people in wealthy Fairfax County, Virginia live 18 years longer than in poor McDowell County, West Virginia, just 350 miles away." Say it so people can understand it without taking notes. No amount of yelling makes up for sloppy language.

It's not just that Sanders used multi-syllable, Latin-root words. His language lacked life. There was no punch. His ideas were emotional and powerful, but his language was intellectual and boring. Yes, he spoke more clearly near the end of this long, turgid, pseudo-intellectual speech, but, by then, who would still be listening? The conservatives are right: we can learn from the past. Harry Truman said it better. 

P.S.: I've given many academic convention talks. I was always prepared. I think some of my presentations were interesting. I hope...

P.P.S.: Here's my post about Bernie Sanders' 2017 speech to a labor union.