Romney: A Reckoning

Coppins anticipates several sources of potential audience bias, especially bias towards Romney’s generational wealth and privilege. What is the rhetorical effect of explicitly anticipating bias? To what extent does he successfully address and combat these biases?

The framing of the biography creates a sense of tension and anticipation as observations about the pre-Trump era are made with the extradiegetic knowledge that issues that seemed so pressing in 2012 will seem meaningless after 2016. How does Coppins’s depiction of the 2012 election compare to his depiction of the 2016 election? What is the effect of juxtaposing these depictions?

This is an unusual biography in that the author reportedly has considerable access to Romney. How does the relationship between Coppins and Romney (in particular, their shared faith) influence the reader’s perception of the text?