I believe you have it right on Ferrara

People like Saddam and career politicians are skilled in giving the majority of 'folks' exactly what they want to hear; the well worn 'symbols' of rhetoric*

*rhetorical arguments*, as in politics or even justice, do not make use of demonstrable or tested truths, but resort to fallible opinions, popular perceptions, transient beliefs, chosen evidence or evidence at hand (like statistics), which are all properly called commonplaces as they help establish a commonality of understanding between the orator or rhetor and his/her audience."

"Rhetoric is not only a method for training effective communicators (rhetors); as a discipline for advanced study, it is a method for understanding on a theoretical as well as a practical level how humans use language ("discourse") to alter or shape our understanding of reality"

Wiki

On the contrary Pete Seeger -

'played on freight trains with the great Woody Guthrie; he played at hootenannies with the singer Leadbelly, and on the street corners of New York.
He played his "If I Had a Hammer" before it was denounced as "commie propaganda".
He co-wrote "We Shall Overcome" and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and he played them at peace marches, voter registration drives and backwater taverns.
He tried to play before the House Un-American Activities Committee; it forbade it.'

I remain unconvinced of any 'similarities'