TOW #6: Nonfiction Piece

In the editorial titled “The Grown-Ups Take the Stage at the Democratic Debate”, the editorial board for the New York Times discusses the oppositions brought up during the Democratic debate.  While this editorial mostly focuses on the Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, The author of this editorial often likes to compare the 5 democratic candidates depending on their policies.  Not only does the author tend to compare the candidates, but the author does it in a demeaning sense.   When discussing Bernie Sanders uncertain views on gun control for example, the author presents Sanders as “undermining his image as the righteuos truth teller” (nytimes.com 6).  By using this diction to cripple Sanders reputation amongst the Democratic party, The Editorial Board manages to further convince an audience compiled of Democratic supporters on who they should stand with during the debates.  Not only does The Editorial Board aim their editorial towards Democratic supporters, but they also attempt to pull in a republican party as well, trying to convince them to convert to Democratic candidates rather than those of the Republican party.  This can be seen during the intro of the editorial when the Republican party is referred to as a “circus of haters, ranters and that very special group of king killers in Congress” (nytimes.com 1).  While this essay does a fine job at comparing the democratic candidates in order to give democratic supporters greater insight on the debate, the editorial is weak in a sense that it is very biased towards the Democratic party.  The editorial does in a sense do a decent job at persuading republican supporters to switch over to the Democratic party, the author does very little to belittle the Democratic party themselves, simply taking away the author's credibility as a reliable source in terms of input on the democratic debate.  Due to this very biased standpoint, I do not believe that this is the strongest editorial for the democratic debate.