THE POLITICAL LEGACY OF US PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN IN THE ASSESSMENTS OF CONTEMPORARY CARTOONISTS

DOI 10.17721/2521-1706.2025.19.2

Liliia Pytlovana,

Ph. D. (History), Associate Professor,

Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv, Ukraine

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5700-9992

Abstract. This article aims to analyze the peculiarities of representing the results of President Joe Biden’s domestic and foreign policy in contemporary cartoons and to identify the decisions of President Biden’s administration that have received the most critical assessment by cartoonists.

The research methodology involves analyzing cartoons as visual satirical texts with their interpretation in a specific historical context; deciphering the system of pictorial principles and methods, the visual semantics of images and plots, the metaphorical logic used by artists; analyzing the visual discourse, semantics of images and plots, the mechanism of their impact on the recipient. Tags to the cartoons (if available) are used to detail visual representations and specify the events and persons depicted.

Scientific novelty. The study of assessments of President Biden’s political legacy in the cartoon highlights the peculiarities of its reception by the American and world public and analyzes the possibilities of the visual narrative of the cartoon to influence the formation of contemporaries’ evaluations of political figures.

Conclusion. The cartoons represent the general political course and specific decisions of President Biden’s administration. The most negative assessments are made of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021 and its consequences (chaotic evacuation of military and civilians; establishment of the Taliban regime; decline in US national security; loss of US international authority; consequent impunity experienced by China, Iran, and Russia, culminating in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine); position on the Russian-Ukrainian war (inability to formulate clear red lines for Putin; unwillingness to find a diplomatic solution to the problem; illogical and belated decisions on the use of American weapons by Ukraine); the decision to pardon H. Biden; the general style of the president’s political behavior (attempts to shift responsibility to predecessors and successors).

According to the cartoonists, the president’s excessive attention to the implementation of left-liberal ideas, and in foreign policy, to the problems of Ukraine was often to the detriment of the interests of the United States and its citizens. Negative evaluations of President Biden’s political legacy in the visual discourse of cartoons resonate with the relevant public narratives spread in the United States during and after the 2024 presidential election.

Key words: visual discourse, Democratic Party of the United States, Joe Biden, political cartoon, Republican Party of the United States, Russian-Ukrainian war, U.S.

Submitted: 15.02.2025

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