Pundit's and pollsters are scratching their heads wondering why Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and real estate mogul Donald Trump are rising in polls in the 2016 presidential race. For working class Americans, the appeal of these two candidates is clear. They have what the puppet-of-the-rich candidates can't buy: authenticity.
Americans are not as oblivious to life in the real world as wealthy candidates and pundits may think. They know that the government is corrupt and that corporations really aren't "people" no matter what the Supreme Court says. They also know that voting for whichever candidate has the most money hasn't been working out for them.
Although it could be argued that Sen. Sanders, running as a Democrat, and Donald Trump, running as a Republican, are on opposites side of the political spectrum, they actually have similar positions on things like keeping Social Security out of the greedy hands of Wall Street bankers with a government privatization scheme.
No matter what the talking heads in the media say, there is a freshness in the plain and authentic talk coming from these two men that is resonating with average Americans. They say what they mean without pandering to the lunatic fringe, and more importantly, they don't seem to care what the donor class thinks of them.If the US has any hope of emerging from the smothering corrupting influence of Citizens United, it will have to come from a candidate that has not been pre-packaged and pre-paid for by a handful of billionaire CEO's and lobbyists interested only in their own bottom line.
Learn more about Sen. Bernie Sanders on the issues here
Learn more about Donald Trump on the issues here
Photo credits
Donald Trump image:
"Donald Trump March 2015" by Michael Vadon - https://www.flickr.com/photos/80038275@N00/16512978040/. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donald_Trump_March_2015.jpg#/media/File:Donald_Trump_March_2015.jpghttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Donald_Trump_March_2015.jpg#/media/File:Donald_Trump_March_2015.jpg
Bernie Sanders image: United States Congress - http://sanders.senate.gov/
