How did the democratic nominee Joe Biden find a way to challenge Trump’s Twitter reign in the 2020 Presidential election?

Kira Weinberger
Language and Digital Media (LING 3800)
Advisor: Kira Hall
LURA 2021

After the 2016 United States Presidential Election, the 45th President, Donald Trump, began the start of what is now known as the “Twitter Presidency”. This presence on Twitter was unlike any president or politician before, changing the arena for future presidential candidates. In order to campaign successfully against Donald Trump, Joe Biden had to beat the president at his own game. In my research project for the course “Language and Digital Media,” I investigated how Joe Biden used Twitter as a tool to defeat Donald Trump in the 2020 Presidential election.

My project initially started after a few comedic Tweets posted by Joe Biden went viral. In our class, we had previously discussed Trump’s use of Twitter and I was curious to see how Joe Biden would combat the Twitter President. Once I discussed my interest with Professor Hall, I decided to further research the semiotics of Biden’s Twitter.

My investigation of Biden’s usage of Twitter led me to find an interesting pattern in his Tweets. In many of Biden’s popular Tweets, he managed to poke fun at Donald Trump by using Trump’s words against himself. This practice of using Trump’s words directly can be described as rescripting, an idea developed by sociolinguist and scholar of language and digital media Alexandra Georgakopoulou. As Georgakopoulou (2015) elaborates, rescripting is “a media-enabled practice that involves visually and/or verbally manipulating previously circulated stories so as to create alternative stories, that are offered and taken up as humorous, satirical takes on the original story” (p. 65). Biden was able to rescript Trump by changing the initial story that Trump conveyed, thus reducing Trump to merely a comedic figure.

 I found that this use of comedy by Biden was only made possible by the use of humor previously utilized by Trump. The use of comedy by Trump is explored in the article Trump's Comedic Gestures as Political Weapon (Goldstein, Hall, and Ingram, 2020). As the authors state: “Through these bodily performances, Trump creates a spectacle to be consumed. It does not matter whether the spectacle is respected, simply tolerated, or even abhorred, the outcome remains the same: We keep on watching” (p. 119). Biden recognized this as true and took advantage of the fact that all eyes are already on Trump. Instead of avoiding Trump’s comedy, he embraced it and turned it into his own. This can be seen in Figure 1, where Biden Tweets a video of Trump stating “If I lose to [Joe Biden], I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I will never speak to you again. You’ll never see me again” (9/19/2020), with the caption “I’m Joe Biden and I approve this message”.  This use of rescripting adds an element of humor by turning what was a sentence that intended to be pro-Trump into an advertisement against him. Instead of making a response to Trump, Biden simply uses Trump’s words as the punchline for the advertisement.

In my investigation I further explored the use of rescripting and comedy as a tool for Joe Biden. In this exploration I found that Biden’s more successful Tweets were ones where he rescripted Donald Trump’s words. Whether it be through using clips of Trump, or retweeting Trump, Biden was able to spin Trump’s words to fit his narrative.

In conclusion, I found that this new use of Twitter by a presidential candidate represents a shift in political discourse as we know it. Just as Trump first revolutionized the use of Twitter as a President, Biden has flipped the script once again, leaving the door open for a new way to campaign. I hope to further explore this practice of rescripting in politics and the use of social media as a tool for politicians. 

Works Cited

Georgakopoulou, A. (2015). Sharing as rescripting: Place manipulations on YouTube between narrative and social media affordances. Discourse, Context & Media (9): 64-72.
Goldstein, D. M., Hall, K., & Ingram, M. B. (2020). Trump’s Comedic Gestures as Political Weapon. Language in the Trump Era, 97-123.
Joseph Biden [@JoeBiden]. (2020, September 19). I’m Joe Biden and I approve this message. [Tweet; thumbnail link to advertisement]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1307491919384260609?s=20
Cover photo credit: https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-53657174