This is the bumper sticker I chose to analyze.

These three simple words, “Hillary For President”, say a lot more than you’d think. Clearly, what is being stated here is that Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate in the 2016 election, should be president. However, when we look a little deeper at this bumper sticker, we’re able to understand there’s a bit more behind this basic statement.

For starters, let’s take a look at what probably caught your eye first: the rainbow flag underneath Hillary’s name. From just the visual aspect of this bumper sticker, we are able to imply that Hillary stands for LGBTQ+ rights, an ideology that makes up not just her but her campaign as well. The gay pride flag paired with Hillary Clinton’s name also allows us to imply that this community supports Hillary as well, considering supporters of the LGBTQ+ community are those who would purchase this bumper sticker. To focus a bit more on what can be implied from the gay pride flag on this bumper sticker, let’s consider why, perhaps, these two items are placed together. Because Hillary was the democratic candidate, it can be assumed she stands for LGBTQ+ rights. Although Donald Trump, her opponent and now president claims to as well, democrats often hold the ideology of supporting the LQBTQ+ family. 

Hillary Clinton at the NYC Gay Pride Parade

Now you may be wondering how this bumper sticker serves as a stripped down form of logos. Well, although all of Hillary’s beliefs and ideas within her presidency aren’t explicitly started, her political platform is indirectly being argued with these three words. Not only would it be impossible to fit her entire campaign on just a single bumper sticker, it’s also unnecessary. The bumper sticker essentially holds Hillary’s political platform, which is made up of her beliefs, why she stands for these beliefs, and what is on her political agenda. From just these three simple words, “Hillary for President”, the foundation and facts of her campaign can be assumed.

In addition to this bumper sticker exemplifying Hillary’s ideology of the LGBTQ+ community deserving equal rights (yes, it saddens me too that this isn’t a commonplace in today’s world just yet), a commonplace does lie here: all the political candidates differ in some way depending on what they stand for. The beauty of these bumper stickers are that at the end of the day, we don’t have to agree on what they strand for, we have the right to decide which candidate we agree with and support most.

At least to me, this bumper sticker logically works pretty well. Most political campaign stickers don’t even show a part of what the candidate stands for, yet Hillary illustrates her support of a community that hasn’t always been so widely accepted. Although it may not seem like it, a bumper sticker supporting a certain candidate holds a vast amount of information, as it truly embodies the entire set of beliefs and facts of an entire person.