Rhetorical Analysis of a Campaign Ad- Jesus Medina

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/campaign-ads-2020/joe-biden-tweets-ad-responding-to-trump-interviews-with-woodward/2020/09/10/19b1be59-7515-431f-97a3-f0fcac18c644_video.html

In this campaign ad by Joe Biden, we hear a recorded phone call that Trump had in private, confirming that he knew how dangerous the Coronavirus was before it grew as big as it got. Next to it, we see Trump in public three weeks later, downplaying the virus saying it’s not too bad, when in reality he knew how deadly it can be. The intended audience for this ad is for all people who live in the United States. Specifically, people who were really affected by the coronavirus. We can tell by the way the ad shows us he knew how deadly the virus can be, but publicly did not warn us about the consequences and downplayed it. The argument that this ad is making is that Trump had a chance to publicly warn and control the virus before it got out of control. He knew about it for a long time and did not use that time to tell us or do something about it. Joe Biden is trying to show people that if he had Trump’s position, he would’ve done something instead of not warning anyone or not doing anything to control the virus. One feeling that this ad evokes is anger. The fact that we now know that this whole coronavirus situation could have been handled better but nothing was done about it can anger many people. Since this virus negatively affected most people and nothing was done about it early on, it angers them. Another feeling that this ad evokes is sadness. Many people died or now have long term health issues due to this lack of virus control and many of us lost family members or family friends. It can sadden many people knowing that the people that died could have been saved. This is a negative ad because Joe Biden paints Donald Trump as someone who did not want to help the people when they most needed the help. This puts a bad image on Trumps part making it a negative ad. One rhetorical appeal that Joe Biden uses is ethos. He establishes authority by showing us Donald Trump’s private conversation. This establishes authority by showing us clear evidence that Trump knew about the virus and lied about it when he downplayed it to the public. Another rhetorical appeal that Joe Biden uses is pathos. He attempts to sway the audience emotionally by showing us how things could have been prevented but they were not. Towards the end of the ad, Biden puts up “He knew. He didn’t warn us. People died.” This shows us how Trump had the opportunity to save people, but chose not to do anything about it except lie. I think this ad is really successful because it shows clear evidence and it can show people how Donald Trump can lie about a very serious situation. This can persuade people to want to vote for Joe Biden because in the future, they would not know wether or not to trust Trump.