The 2020 Election: Close-Reading Biden’s First Campaign Ad

Biden’s 2020 campaign is built almost entirely on nostalgia for 2008.

A campaign ad can tell us a lot about a candidate — not about their policies, which can be hard to get across in only sixty seconds, but instead about their aesthetic, the way they present themselves and their campaign, the subtle signifiers meant to appeal to specific voters. In a previous blog post, I close-read each major candidate’s campaign announcement video, and my analysis, I…