Background

The 2016 Presidential Election is upon us! Several of Americas most known public figures are butting heads in what could be a very interesting election from now until November. As usual, a vast majority of America's citizens have begun researching these figure's ideals and plans for our future and decide which way they prefer to go. During this crucial time of opinions and ideas within the America people, negative thoughts towards certain people begin to float to the surface. These ideas, more often than not take form in discriminatory statements and opinions. Even within a group of America's presidential candidates, discrimination exists and it has been known to fog over the real plans and ideas that they have planned for our country.  In this project, our team has gathered some of the most discriminatory editorial cartoons of the past couple years drawn depicting several biases and opinions regarding the candidates. Our purpose is to weed out the discrimination and see whether these opinions carry any truth. We will focus on gender discrimination with Hillary Clinton, race discrimination with Donald Trump, intelligence discrimination with Ben Carson and age discrimination with Bernie Sanders. Continue reading to dive deeper into each issue and see where discrimination divides truth.

Ben Carson:

During the 2016 Presidential election, Ben Carson has been depicted as many things, the one We are focusing on is the fact he may be brain surgeon but he makes some less then intelligent comments that make him look dumb. Some of the statements he has said are: “Going to prison makes you gay…” He stated “Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay.” (Berenson, 2015). He may have not said it word for word he did say something like that, but later he came out and apologized.

“Obamacare is slavery.” He actually said this “You know Obamacare is really I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.” (Sullivan, 2013). The reason behind this statement is that he doesn’t think it was about health care but more about control.

“A Muslim shouldn’t be President.” he actually said " he would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation."(Bradner, 2015). Ben Carson does not believe that a Muslim could put the counties well-being in front of their religious belief which would mean they are not fit to be the president.

“America is like Nazi Germany.” “I mean [we are] very much like Nazi Germany.” (Chumley, 2014). He did in fact state this but he also had a reason behind it as with all his other statements. The reason for this statement is he believes that the government is intimidating people and people are not speaking up because of fear.

This gives us a little bit of a background as it shows what the author of an editorial cartoon credits him of saying and then a source of what he has actually said. It is not only that he makes such comments but the fact that he does it on T.V while running for President. It would seem also that many people don’t understand exactly what he means and are not giving him time to explain like in this case, “We shouldn’t raise the minimum wage.” “We should help people get on the ladder of opportunity!” “That’s why we need to keep the bottom rung really low.” (Wasserman, 2015). Here the author of the cartoon has him saying we shouldn’t raise minimum wage and how we should all start out at the bottom of a ladder. What we see here is value laden words that take things and twist them just a little. Ben Carson stated that “people need to be educated on minimum wage. Every time we change the wage the number of jobless people increases.” (Worstall, 2015). With that being said it can go with anything he has said, don’t just take the picture or some ones word for it but go and do your own research like we have.

Bernie Sanders: 

Senator Sanders has a lot on his plate. He's been a senator since 2007 and has loads of experience in the world of government. Being a part of the government for so long not only adds to his resume but also adds to his age. Bernie Sanders is 75 years old. Although only four to five some odd years older than Mr. Trump and a then just six years or so above Clinton, Sanders has been labeled as the old geezer running for president in this year’s elections. The Democrat has had a lot of experience getting to where he is now, but oddly enough not everyone is a fan of the idea that an old dog can in fact learn new tricks. Several are against the idea that Sanders, who would be the oldest president that has been elected, can keep up with the growing and changing world (Tinker, 2015).

Bernie stands against the stigma, as he focuses mostly on liberals and young adults. His ideas carry power to younger generations looking for more access to college, healthcare and so on. He also stresses the importance of keeping the environment safe from man-caused dangers. Although these ideas seem rather young and hip in the changing world, they are in fact coming from a 75 year old man running for President. We're going to dive into how he is opposed as the geezer of the group and see how much truth lies in the discriminatory statements made about him.

Donald Trump:

In this project we will talk about the way cartoonists can be racist or prejudice towards different minority groups such as African Americans and women. In this section we will be taking this topic from a slightly different perspective. Donald Trump, the front runner for the Republican nomination for the 2016 elections has been accused of being many things due to several comments he has made. Among them have been racist, sexist, and extremist. The cartoons that have been made in honor of Donald Trump have not been necessarily prejudice toward him, but rather make him out to be the racist. Cartoonist have used the same techniques to be racist toward other candidates as they have to put Trump in this negative spotlight. Here you will see that these different techniques focus on our emotions and intelligence to encourage us to form a certain opinion about Trump in a stylistic and creative manner.


Hillary Clinton: 

In 2008 After Hillary’s loss in the primaries to surging Barack Obama, she mentioned her disappointment in not winning more of the women’s vote by uttering that there were now 18 million crack in the glass ceiling. Hillary Clinton is now viewed as the most likely woman to become the first to lead the American nation. Hillary has played into the gender card more in this campaign than she did in the 2008 campaign. Her being a mother and a grandmother adds an effect that men just cannot compete with when it comes to the women vote. She was quoted saying “Well, I think that’s pretty obvious. Being the first woman president would be quite a change from the presidents we’ve had, including President Obama,” when asked about how her as president would differ from the presidency of the current Commander in Chief. She was also quoted saying, “Yes, finally fathers will be able to say to their daughters, you too can grow up to be president,” during the first democratic debate.

Many people believe that Hillary would not have as much sway if were not her former president husband Bill Clinton. Having someone in one’s corner with such prestige within their party is an asset that most candidates would envy. Although Bill Clinton had one of the biggest presidential scandals to date with his Monica Lewinski affair and Paula Corbin Jones, he had an approval rating that trended upwards throughout his presidency. Hillary often has Bill speak to crowds when visiting states who hold primaries in the immediate future. This often leads to speculation that she is deploying him to help win over supporters who may have supported Bill in the past.

One of the biggest obstacles Hillary has overcome in her attempt to land the leader of the free world is her involvement in the Benghazi fiasco. In 2012, a United States Embassy was attacked and four Americans, including an American ambassador, were brutally slain. Before the attacks in Benghazi it is reported that workers at the Libyan embassy requested more security and it was never set in motion for that to happen. It is thought to be senior bureaucratic officers fault that this did not happen. Clinton claimed that they were granted the extra security measures, but the review board of the assault said that this is not apparent. Throughout the review of Clinton’s emails, she seemed to make untrue statements and then when questioned about the her untrue claims, she back tracked and muddled around what she previously mentioned.

Hillary Clinton, in 1993, attempted to create a universal health care system,but was thwarted by congress in the end. What is now known as Obamacare was first Hillary Clinton’s idea. Her idea was to have employers pay for the healthcare of their employees.


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