TOW #9 - The Results of the 2016 Presidential Election

In this political cartoon in the New York Times by Moir, Hillary Clinton is shown to be clearly winning the race against Donald Trump until she sees the FBI and Russia are helping Trump finish the race to become the next president. This political cartoon pictures the devastation Clinton felt when Trump’s presidential election began to take the lead on November 8^th, 2016. The road in this political cartoon is extremely rough and represents the entire conflict that occurred between these two candidates during the election. Moir is an Australian cartoonist who regularly creates cartoons for New York Times Syndicate on international events. The audience is for people in America who believed that Donald Trump was going to lose and show them that he has many people who are supporting his run for president. The purpose of this political cartoon was to represent the rapid change of the election and show the audience that Hillary Clinton was in the lead until Donald Trump rapidly changed the results of the election with his supporters. The Russian president, who preferred Trump to become president, and the FBI, who reopened Clinton’s private e-mails directly before the election, are on the back of this bicycle to represent how Donald Trump was able to effectively use events that occurred before the election to successfully become the next president. The rhetorical devices used in this political cartoon are imagery and juxtaposition to effectively prove the purpose of this political cartoon. The vivid imagery in this cartoon represents the two presidential candidates wearing the American flag, the FBI agent wearing all black, and the Russian flag being worn on the person on the back of Trump’s bicycle. The juxtaposition in this cartoon is expressed through Hillary Clinton alone on her bike compared to Donald Trump who had an enormous amount of help from the FBI and Russia’s support to easily begin to win the presidential election of 2016. I believe that Moir successfully achieved his purpose because this image obviously shows how Trump was able to change the election’s results and win the race to become the next president of the United States.