Donald, Bernie, and DJ Khaled: The Language of Populism

It might seem impossible to imagine two presidential candidates more different than Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. At first glance, the endearing, bespectacled Jewish-socialist grandpa from Vermont and the brash, presumptuous New York billionaire can hardly be recognized as members of the same species. But while their personalities and views are antipodal, they deliver their messages in a shockingly similar manner.  Both candidates use simple, forceful language with an "us vs. them" tone.
Donald Trump may be Ivy-educated, but he speaks very crudely. His sentences are short and choppy, which keeps his arguments very uncomplicated. Rather than being part of a longer, more sophisticated description of a policy or issue, every utterance is an isolated applause line ("Build that wall!"). It's elementary - literally. The Flesch–Kincaid readability test, which shows how difficult a text is to understand, scored a transcript of Mr. Trump's responses at a 2015 news conference at the third-grade level. But worry not! He earned a fourth-grade score the week prior. To quantify Mr. Trump's limited skill with the English language, The New York Times studied a week's worth of his speeches. They tallied Mr. Trump's words, and found a lack of diversity usually seen only at his rallies. “Stupid” was said at least 30 times, “horrible” 14 times, “weak” (13), “guy” (91), “problem,” (87), "good" (114), and of course: "great" (168). The repetition suggests Mr. Trump's speechwriter is a pigeon mimicking the candidate's remarks from the previous night. Polly wanna make America great again? 
To compensate for his shallow vocabulary, the real-estate tycoon loves to attach intensifiers to basic verbs and adjectives ("I'm really rich"/"We're run by either very foolish or very stupid people"/"We’re going to win so much"). Doing so gives his campaign an air of unstoppable hugeness, but it also generates comforting vagueness. Of his proposed US/Mexico border barrier, Mr. Trump said "I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively." Isn't it relieving to know that our president-to-be is an expert mason? Yes. And even more comforting is the fact that the Great Wall of Trump will be inexpensive. How inexpensive? Very inexpensive. Mr. Trump's prolific intensifier-usage allows him to substitute assuring vagueness for concrete information. And it works. I mean, “when you’re really smart, when you’re really, really smart; like I am" - how could it not?
Apparently, rudimentary English and fear-mongering go hand in hand. Two of Mr. Trump's most beloved words besides those listed above are "We" and "They" ."We" refers to Trump and his supporters, while "They" are the scary foes responsible for making America not-so-great. Immigrants, foreign countries, and liberals are the main constituents of They. The two pronouns are also heavily used by Snapchat sensation DJ Khaled to rally his followers. Just as "They don't want you to eat lunch,"They (Mexican immigrants) are rapists." "'We vs. them' creates a threatening dynamic, where 'they' are evil or crazy or ignorant and 'we' need a candidate who sees the threat and can alleviate it," says Matt Motyl, a political psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "He appeals to the masses and makes them feel powerful again: 'We' need to build a wall on the Mexican border — not 'I,' but 'we.'" Like the rest of Mr. Trump's linguistic themes, "we vs. them" is very simplistic. It has to be simplistic, seeing as it's a generalization that casts entire groups of people as cancers to society. Afraid of losing your job? Immigrants are the issue. Afraid of terrorism? Send back the refugees. It's scapegoating for the comfort of the masses - fear not, for they are the cause of all our problems, and we will defeat them.
While perhaps not as pronounced, Mr. Trump's DJ Khaledian mindset is also featured in Bernie Sanders' campaign. If you feel the Bern, we are the 99%, with they are the Wall Street elite. Wall Street is Bernie's scapegoat, and he turns the topic of discussion towards income inequality whenever possible. Now, while Sen. Sanders' speech isn't quite as repetitive as Donald Trump's, it's equally basic and forceful. Bernie loves to talk about how he'd "break up the banks," or "ignite" a political revolution. He isn't a fan of multi-syllabled words or long, complex sentences any more than Mr. Trump is.
Even if their language is similar, the candidate's messages are not. So why have simple, powerful deliveries been so effective in communicating completely different material? The answer, I believe, is in the target audience. Both Sen. Sanders and Mr. Trump have had success because they appeal to angry voters. Trump fans are angry at immigrants, outsourcing, and the political correctness that they feel demonizes non-minorities. Sanders fans, meanwhile, are angry at the wealthy elite. Both candidates have dumbed-downed and narrowed-in their rhetoric to relate to their base's biggest anxieties. Thus, this election has demonstrated the might of many angry, parochial voices instead of even-keeled, thoughtful citizens concerned with a broad range of issues. What does this say about our democracy? If dumbed-down language wins votes, how smart is the American public? Can a country elect a demagogue without sacrificing its global image? Maybe Donald Trump knows. After all, he's really, really smart.