The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
Bernie Sanders podium. Flickr/Gage Skidmore. Some rights reserved.
The US presidential primaries have shown that there are important similarities and convergences in methods and tactics between Donald Trump’s followers and sections of Bernie Sanders' mass support. Even though the two movements have radically different goals, the politics of feeling and the use of social media and mass rallies to campaign for utopian change are closer than one might imagine. But while social media activism and mass rallies can act as a catalyst to spread a vision, they cannot on their own deliver the desired change.
