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• Published: 11 December 2023

The art of rhetoric: persuasive strategies in Biden’s inauguration speech: a critical discourse analysis

• Nisreen N. Al-Khawaldeh 1 ,
• Luqman M. Rababah   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3871-3853 2 ,
• Ali F. Khawaldeh 1 &
• Alaeddin A. Banikalef 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  10 , Article number:  936 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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• Language and linguistics

This research investigated the main linguistic strategies used in President Biden’s inauguration speech presented in 2021. Data were analyzed in light of Fairclough’s CDA framework: macro-structure (thematic)—intertextually; microstructure in syntax analysis (cohesion); stylistic (lexicon choice to display the speaker’s emphasis); and rhetoric in terms of persuasive function. The thematic analysis of the data revealed that Biden used certain persuasive strategies including creativity, metaphor, contrast, indirectness, reference, and intertextuality, for addressing critical issues. Creative expressions were drawn highlighting and magnifying significant real-life issues. Certain concepts and values (i.e., unity, democracy, and racial justice) were also accentuated as significant elements of America’s status and Biden’s ideology. Intertextuality was employed by resorting to an extract from one of the American presidents in order to convince the Americans and the international community of his ideas, vision, and policy. It appeared that indirect expressions were also used for discussing politically sensitive issues to acquire a political and interactional advantage over his political opponents. His referencing style showed his interest in others and their unity. Significant ideologies encompassing unity, equality, and freedom for US citizens were stated implicitly and explicitly. The study concludes that the effective use of linguistic and rhetorical devices is important to construct meanings in the world, be persuasive, and convey the intended vision and underlying ideologies.

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Introduction.

The significance of language in political and academic realms has gained prominence in recent times (Iqbal et al., 2020 ; Kozlovskaya, et al., 2020 ; Moody & Eslami, 2020 ). Language serves as a potent instrument in politics, embodying a crucial role in the struggle for power to uphold and enact specific beliefs and interests. Undeniably, language encompasses elements that unveil diverse intended meanings conveyed through political speeches, influencing, planning, accompanying, and managing every political endeavor. Effectiveness in political speeches relies on meeting criteria such as credibility, logic, and emotional appeal (Nikitina, 2011 ). Credibility is attained through possessing a particular amount of authority and understanding of the selected issue. Logical coherence is evident when the speech is clear and makes sense to the audience. In addition, establishing an emotional connection with the audience is essential to capture and maintain their attention.

Political speech, a renowned genre of discourse, reveals a lot about how power is distributed, exerted, and perceived in a country. Speech is a powerful tool for shaping the political thinking and political “mind” of a nation, allowing the actors and recipients of political activity to acquire a certain political vision (Fairclough, 1989 ). Political scientists are primarily interested in the historical implications of political decisions and acts, and they are interested in the political realities that are formed in and via discourse (Schmidt, 2008 ; Pierson & Skocpol, 2002 ). Linguists, on the other hand, have long been fascinated by language patterns employed to deliver politically relevant messages to certain locations in order to accomplish a specific goal.

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a crucial approach for analyzing language in depth so as to reveal certain tendencies within political discourse (Janks, 1997 ). CDA is not the same as other types of discourse analysis. That is why it is said to be “critical.” According to Cameron ( 2001 ), “critical refers to a way of understanding the social world drawn from critical theory” (p. 121). Fairclough ( 1995 ) also says, “Critical implies showing connections and causes which are hidden; it also implies intervention, for example, providing resources for those who may be disadvantaged through change” (p. 9). In short, it can be applied to both talk and text delivered by leaders or politicians who normally have a lot of authority to reveal their hidden agenda (Cameron, 2001 ) and decipher the meaning of the crucial concealed ideas (Fairclough, 1989 ). Therefore, it is a useful technique for analyzing texts like speeches connected with power, conflict, and politics, such as Martin Luther King’s speech (Alfayes, 2009 ). Fairclough concludes that CDA can elucidate the hidden meaning of “I Have a Dream,” the speech that has a strong and profound significance and whose messages concerning black Americans’ poverty and struggle have inspired many people all around the world. The ideological components are enshrined in political speeches since “ideology invests language in various ways at various levels and that ideology is both properties of structures and events” (Fairclough, 1995 , p. 71). Thus, meanings are produced through attainable interpretations of the target speech.

CDA has obtained wide prominence in analyzing language usage beyond word and sentence levels (Almahasees & Mahmoud, 2022 ). CDA, also known as critical language study (Fairclough, 1989 ) or critical linguistics (Fairclough, 1995 ; Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999 ), considers language to be a critical component of social and cultural processes (Fairclough, 1992 ; Fairclough, 1995 ; Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999 ). The goal of this strategy, according to Fairclough ( 1989 ), is to “contribute to the broad raising of consciousness of exploitative social connections by focusing on language” (p. 4). He also claims that CDA is concerned with studying linkages within language between dominance, discrimination, power, and control (Fairclough, 1992 ; Fairclough, 1995 ) and that the goal of CDA is to link between discourse practice and social practice obvious (Fairclough, 1995 ). The CDA is a type of critical thinking which means, according to Beyer ( 1995 ), “developing reasoned conclusions.” Thus, it might be viewed as a critical perspective and interpretation that focuses on social issues, notably the role of discourse in the production and reproduction of power abuse or dominance (Wodak & Meyer, 2009 ). Furthermore, the ‘Sapir–Whorf hypothesis’ indicates that the goal of critical discourse interpretation is to retrieve the social meanings conveyed in the speech by analyzing language structures considering their interactive and larger social contexts (Fairclough, 1992 ; Kriyantono, 2019 ; Lauwren, 2020 ).

Political communication is generally classified as a persuasive speech since it aims to influence or convince people that they have made the right choice (Nusartlert, 2017 ). Persuasive discourse is a very powerful tool for getting what is needed or intended. In such a type of discourse, people use communicative strategies to convince or urge specific thoughts, actions, and attitudes. Scheidel defines persuasion as “the activity in which the speaker and the listener are conjoined and in which the speaker consciously attempts to influence the behavior of the listener by transmitting audible, visible and symbolic” ( 1967 , p. 1). Thus, persuasive language is used to fulfill various reasons, among which is convincing people to accept a specific standpoint or idea.

Political speeches are considered eloquent pieces of communication oriented toward persuading the target audience (Haider, 2016 ). Politicians often use many persuasive techniques to express their agendas in refined language in order to convince people of their views on certain issues, gain support from the public, and ultimately achieve the envisioned goals (Fairclough, 1992 ). Leaders who control uncertainty, build allies, and generate supportive resources can easily gain enough leverage to lead. This means that their usage of language aims to put their intended political, economic, and social acts into practice. The inaugural speech is a very political discourse to analyze because it marks the inception of the new presidency, mainly focusing on infusing unity among people. In light of the scarcity of research on this significant speech, this study aims to investigate the main linguistic persuasive strategies used in President Biden’s inauguration speech presented in 2021.

Literature review

Political speeches are a significant genre within the realm of political discourse in which politicians use language intentionally to steer people’s mindsets and emotions in order to achieve a specific outcome. Since politics is mainly based on a constant struggle for power among concerned individuals or parties, persuasive techniques are crucial elements politicians use to manipulate others or make them accept their entrenched ideas and plans. Persuasion involves using rhetoric to convince the target audience to embrace certain ideologies, adopt specific attitudes, and control their behavior toward a particular issue (Van Dijk, 2015 ). The inaugural speeches are quite diplomatic and rhetorical, as they constitute a golden chance for the leaders to assert their leadership style. Thus, they are open to different types of interpretations and form a copious source of data for politicians and linguists. The linguistic choices politicians make are rational because of the underlying ideologies that determine the way their speeches should be structured. Considering this idea, it is vital to study the rhetoric of the American presidential inaugural speech since it was presented at a time full of critical political events and scenarios by a very influential political figure in the world, marking the inception of a new phase in the lives of Americans and the world. The significance of studying such a piece of discourse lies in the messages that the new president seeks to deliver to the American nation and the world at large.

Biden’s speeches have attracted researchers’ attention. For example, Renaldo & Arifin ( 2021 ) examined Biden’s ideology evident in his inaugural speech. The analysis of the data revealed three types of presuppositions manifested in his speech, i.e., lexical, existential, and factive, where lexical presupposition is the most frequent one. The underlying ideology was demonstrated in issues regarding immigrants, healthcare, racism, democracy, and climate change.

Prasetio and Prawesti ( 2021 ) analyzed the underlying meanings based on word counts considering three subcategories: hostility, use of auxiliaries, and noun-pronoun discourse analysis. The results revealed Biden’s hope of helping Americans by overcoming problems, developing many fields, and enhancing different aspects. It was evident that his underlying ideology was liberalism and his cherished values were democracy and unity.

Pramadya and Rahmanhadi ( 2021 ) studied the way Biden employed the rhetoric of political language in his inauguration speech in order to show his plans and political views. Each political message conveyed in his inauguration speech revealed his ideology and power. Sociocultural practices that supported the text were explored to view the inherent reality that gave rise to the discourse.

Amir ( 2021 ) investigated Biden’s persuasive strategies and the covert ideology manifested in his inaugural speech. Numerous components including “the rule of three,” the past references, the biblical examples, etc., were analyzed. The results emphasized the strength of America’s heroic past, which requires that Americans mainly focus on American values of tolerance, unity, and love.

Bani-Khaled and Azzam ( 2021 ) examined the linguistic devices used to convey the theme of unity in President Joe Biden’s Inauguration Speech. The qualitative analysis of this theme showed that the speaker used suitable linguistic features to clarify the concept of unity. It revealed that the tone of the speech appeared confident, reconciliatory, and optimistic. Both religion and history were resorted to as sources of rhetorical and persuasive devices.

The review of the literature shows a bi-directional relationship between language and sociocultural practices. Each one of them exerts an influence on the other. Therefore, CDA explores both the socially shaped and constitutive sides of language usage since language is viewed as “social identity, social relations, and systems of knowledge and belief” (Fairclough, 1993 , p. 134). It shows invisible connections and interventions (Fairclough, 1992 ). Consequently, it is significant to disclose such unobserved meanings and intentions to listeners who may not be aware of them.

Despite the plethora of critical discourse analysis research on political speeches, few studies were conducted on Biden’s inauguration speech. Thus, this study aims to enrich the existing research by complementing the analysis and highlighting some other significant aspects of Biden’s inauguration speech. Therefore, it is expected that this study will enrich critical discourse analysis research by focusing mainly on political speech. It can be a helpful source for teachers studying and teaching languages. They will learn how to properly analyze discourses by following a critical thinking approach to fully comprehend the relationship linking individual parts of discourses and creating meaning. Besides, the study casts light on distinctive features of societies manifested in political speech.

Methodology

The present study analyses President Biden’s inauguration speech (Biden, 2021 ). Data were analyzed in light of the CDA framework: macro-structure (thematic)—intertextually; microstructure in syntax analysis (cohesion); stylistic (lexicon choice to display the speaker’s emphasis); and rhetoric in terms of persuasive function. Fairclough’s discourse analysis approach was adopted to analyze the target speech in terms of text analysis, discursive practices, and social practices. The main token and the frequency of the recurring words were statistically analyzed, whereas the persuasive strategies proposed by Obeng ( 1997 ) were analyzed based on Fairclough’s ( 1992 ) CDA mentioned above.

Results and discussion

In the United States, presidents deliver inaugural speeches after taking the presidential oath of office. Presidents use this occasion to address the public and lay forth their vision and objectives. These speeches can also help to unify the United States, especially after difficult times or conflicts. Millions of people in the United States, as well as millions of people throughout the world, listen to the inaugural speeches to gain a glimpse of the new president’s vision for the world. This speech is particularly intriguing to analyze using the CDA framework in many aspects. Fairclough ( 1992 ) emphasizes that language must be regarded as an instrument of power as well as a tool of communication. Actually, there is a technique for utilizing language that seeks to encourage individuals who are engaged to do particular things.

The analysis of the ideological aspect of Biden’s inaugural speech endeavors to link this speech with certain social processes and to decode his invisible ideology. From the opening lines, it is apparent that Biden’s ideology is based on inclusiveness and a citizen-based position. At the beginning of his speech, he uses the first few minutes of his inaugural speech to thank and address his predecessors and audience as ‘my fellow Americans,’ lumping all sorts of nationalities and ethnicities together as one nation.

Biden then continues to mark a successful and smooth transition of power with an emphasis on a citizen-based attitude. He underlines that the victory belongs not only to him but to all Americans who have spoken up for a better life in the United States, saying “We celebrate the triumph not of a candidate, but of a cause. The cause of democracy. The people, the will of the people has been heard and the will of the people has been heeded.” With this victory, he promised to take his position seriously to unify America as a whole, regardless of its diversity by eliminating discrimination and reuniting the country’s divided territories in order to rebuild fresh faith among Americans. People of all races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, faiths, and origins should be treated equally. There is no difference between red and blue states except for the United States. Through this technique, he tries to accentuate that the whole American system depends on grassroots diplomacy, rather than an exclusive system of presidency. The beginning and the end of his speech successfully emphasize the importance of the oath that he took on himself to serve his nation without bias where he begins with “I have just taken a sacred oath each of those patriots took” and reminds the audience of the holiness of this oath at the end of his speech; as he says “ I close today where I began, with a sacred oath ”.

This section is divided into seven parts. Each of these parts analyses the speech in light of the selected persuasive strategies, which are creativity, indirectness, intertextuality, choice of lexis, coherence, modality, and reference. These strategies were selected among others due to their knock-on effect on explicating the core ideas of the speech.

Creativity is an essential part of any successful political speech. That is because it plays a significant role in structuring the facts the speaker wants to convey in a way that is accessible to the audience. It helps political figures persuade the public of their ideas, initiatives, and agendas. Indeed, Biden’s speech abounds with examples of creativity which in turn shapes the policies and expectations he adopts.

By using the expression “ violence sought to shake the Capitol’s very foundation ”. The speaker alluded with some subtlety and shrewdness to the riots made by a pro-Trump crowd that assaulted the US Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to prevent the formal certification of the Electoral College results. Hundreds of fanatics walked onto the same platform where Biden had taken his oath of office, they offended the democracy and prestige of the place and the US reputation. He left unsaid that they were sent to the Capitol by the previous president, and described them in another part of his speech:

Here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, and to drive us from this sacred ground.

Biden won the popular vote by a combined (7) million votes and the Electoral College. The election results were frequently confirmed in courts as being free of fraud. Nevertheless, the rioters who attacked the Capitol claimed differently and never completely admitted these results.

The other thing that stood out was Biden’s emphasis on racism. He highlighted the Declaration of Independence’s goals, as he often does, and depicted them as being at odds with reality:

I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real. But I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we are all created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart.

Of all, this isn’t the first time a president has spoken about racism at an inauguration. However, in the backdrop of the (Black Lives Matter) riots and the continued attack on voting rights, Biden’s adoption of that phrase as his own is both strategically and ethically significant. The pursuit of racial justice has previously been mentioned by Biden as a significant government aim. To lend substance to his rhetoric, society will have to take action on criminal justice reform and voting rights.

President Biden also argued that there has been great progress in women’s rights.

Here we stand, where 108 years ago at another inaugural, thousands of protesters tried to block brave women marching for the right to vote. Today we mark the swearing-in of the first woman in American history elected to national office—Vice President Kamala Harris.

In 1913, a huge number of women marched for the right to vote in a massive suffrage parade on the eve of President-elect Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration, but the next day crowds of mostly men poured into the street for the following day’s inauguration, making it almost impossible for the marchers to get through. Many women heard ‘indecent epithets’ and ‘barnyard banter,’ and they were jeered, tripped, groped, and shoved. But now the big difference has been achieved. During his primary campaign, Biden promised to make history with his running mate selection, claiming he would exclusively consider women. He followed through on that commitment by choosing a lawmaker from one of the most ardent supporters of his campaign, black women, as well as the fastest-growing minority group in the country, Asian Americans.

On a related note, the president touched on the issue of racism, xenophobia, nativism, and other forms of intolerance in the United States “ And now, a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat .” He stressed that every human being has inherent dignity and deserves to be treated with fairness. That is why, on his first day in office, he signed an order establishing a whole-government approach to equity and racial justice. Biden’s administration talks of “restoring humanity” to the US immigration system and considering immigrants as valuable community members and employees. At the same time, Biden is signaling that the previous administration’s belligerent attitude toward partners is over, that the US’s image has plummeted to new lows, and that America can once again be trusted to uphold its commitments in a clear attempt to heal the rift in America’s foreign relations and rebuild alliances with the rest of the world.

So here is my message to those beyond our borders: America has been tested and we have come out stronger for it. We will repair our alliances and engage with the world once again.

Indirectness

Politicians avoid being obvious and speak indirectly while discussing politically sensitive issues in order to protect and advance their careers as well as acquire a political and interactional advantage over their political opponents. It’s also possible that the indirectness is driven by courtesy. Evasion, circumlocution, innuendoes, metaphors, and other forms of oblique communication can be used to convey this obliqueness. Indirectness is closely connected with politeness as it serves politicians’ agendas by spreading awful stories about their opponents (Van Dijk, 2011 ).

Many presidents have been more inclined to draw comparisons between their policies and those of their predecessors. Therefore, Biden was so adamant about avoiding focusing on the previous president that he didn’t criticize or blame the Trump administration’s shortcomings on the epidemic or anything else. In other words, he does not want to offend Republicans, Trump’s party. When Biden was talking about the attack on the US Capitol by the supporters of Trump, he didn’t mention that Trump had sent them. He talked about the lies of Trump and his followers without naming them, but the idea was clear.

There is truth and there are lies. Lies told for power and for profit” he declared. “Each of us has a duty and responsibility, as citizens, as Americans, and especially as leaders—leaders who have pledged to honor our Constitution and protect our nation—to defend the truth and to defeat the lies.

Of course, such lies were spread not merely by Trump and his horde, but also by the majority of Republicans in Congress, who relentlessly promoted the myth that Trump had won the election. One of the most striking aspects of Biden’s speech is this: while appealing for unity, he admitted that some of his opponents aren’t on the same page as him and that their influence has to be addressed. Biden didn’t use his speech to criticize those who believe his victory was skewed, but he appeared to acknowledge that his plan would be tough to implement without tackling the spread of lies. It was an interesting choice for a man who promotes compromise.

Biden’s speech is enriched with numerous conceptual metaphors and metonymies stemming from various domains. Metaphor is perceived as an effective pervasive technique used frequently in our daily communication (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980 ; Van Dijk, 2006 ). It helps the addressees understand and experience one thing in terms of another. It is closely related to cognition as it affects people’s reasoning and giving opinions and judgments (Thibodeau and Boroditsky, 2011 ). For example, Biden used the metaphor ‘Lower the temperature’ to lessen the tension and chaos caused in the previous presidential period. In another example, he utilized ‘ Politics need not be a raging fire ’ to portray politics as something dangerous and might destroy others.

Biden presents examples of metonymy when he portrays periods of troubles, setbacks, and difficult times as dark winter ‘We will need all our strength to persevere through this dark winter’ to emphasize the gloomy days Americans experience in times of crises and wars. The representation of the concept of ‘unity as the path forward’ implicitly alludes to Biden’s path for the previously created divided America, emphasizing the significance of following and securing the necessary solution, which is unity as the path for moving forward. The depiction of crises facing Americans such as ‘ Anger, resentment, hatred. Extremism, lawlessness, violence, Disease, joblessness, hopelessness’ as foes, make people feel the urgent need to unite in order to combat these foes. The expression of ‘ ugly reality ’ reflects an atrocious world full of problems such as racism, nativism, fear, and demonetization . Integrating such conceptual metaphors and metonymy is conventional and deeply rooted and can lead to promoting ideologies by presenting critical political issues in a specific way (Charteris-Black, 2018 ). They make the speech more persuasive as they facilitate people’s understanding of abstract and intricate ideas through using concrete experienceable objects (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980 ). In other words, they perfectly and politely portray serious issues confronting Americans as well as the course of action required to overcome them. Democracy is depicted as both a precious and fragile object. This metonymy makes people appreciate the value of democracy and encourages them to cherish and protect it. Biden declares that democracy, which has been torn during the previous period, has triumphed over threats. Using this metonymy succeeded in connecting logos with pathos, which is one of the goals of using metaphors in political speeches (Mio, 1997 ).

The metonymy of America as a symbol of good things ‘ An American story of decency and dignity. Of love and of healing. Of greatness and of goodness ’ is deliberately created to represent America as an honest and good country. Through this metaphor, Biden appeals not only to the emotions of all people but also to their minds to persuade them that America has been a source of goodness. This finding supports the researchers’ outcomes (Van Dijk, 2006 ; Charteris-Black, 2011 ; Boussaid, 2022 ) that figurative language reveals how important issues are framed in order to advocate specific ideologies by appealing to people’s emotions. Hence, it is a crucial persuasive technique used in political speeches. This implies that Biden is aware of the significance of metaphor as a persuasive rhetoric component.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality has been defined as “the presence of a text in another text” (Genette, 1983 ). Fairclough claims that all texts are intertextual by their very nature and that they are thus constituents of other texts (Fairclough, 1992 ). It is an indispensable strategic feature politicians employ in their speeches to enhance the strength of the speech and reinforce religious, sociocultural, and historical contexts (Kitaeva & Ozerova, 2019 ). Antecedent texts and names are significant components of rhetoric in politics, especially in presidential speeches, because any leader of a country must follow historical, state, moral, and ethical traditions and conventions; referring to precedent texts is one way to get familiar with them. This linguistic phenomenon is necessary for reaching an accurate interpretation of the text, conveying the intended message (Kitaeva & Ozerova, 2019 ), and increasing the credibility of the text, thus getting the audience’s attention to believe in the speaker’s words (Obeng, 1997 ).

Presidents and political intellectuals in the United States have made plenty of statements that will be remembered for years to come. These previous utterances have been unchangeably repeated by other presidents of the USA in different situations throughout American history and are familiar to all Americans. Presidents of the United States frequently quote their predecessors. Former US presidents are frequently mentioned in the corpus of intertextual instances. The oath taken by all presidents—a set rhetorical act of speech—contains a lot of intertextuality. On a macro-structure level, the speaker utilizes intertextuality to give the general theme an appearance by recalling ‘old’ information. Biden quoted Psalm 30:5: “ Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning .” It is a verse that has great resonance for him, given the loss of his wife and daughter in a car accident and his adult son Beau to cancer. On this occasion, he links it to the suffering, with more than 400,000 Americans having died from COVID-19. This biblical and religious type of intertextuality implies that Biden links people’s intimate connection to God with their social and ethical responsibilities.

Another example is when Biden refers to a saying of President Abraham Lincoln in 1863: “ If my name ever goes down into history, it will be for this act and my whole soul is in it .” Although he leads at a completely different time, much like President Lincoln, Biden is grappling with the challenge of a deeply divided country. Deep political schisms have existed in the United States for a long time, but tensions seem to have been exacerbated lately. These nods to Lincoln bring an element of familiarity back to US politics and, potentially, a sense of return to stability after years of turbulence. The president has also quoted a part of the American Anthem Lyrics. He has recited a few lines of the song that highlight his values of hard work, religious faith, and concern for the nation’s future.

The work and prayers of century have brought us to this day. What shall be our legacy? What will our children say… Let me know in my heart When my days are through America, America I gave my best to you.

Choice of lexis

This choice of lexis may have an impact on the way the listeners think and believe what the speaker says. As Aman ( 2005 ) argues, the use of certain words shows the seriousness of the speech to convince people. Regarding this choice of vocabulary, Denham and Roy ( 2005 ) argue that “the vocabulary provides valuable insight into those words which surround or support a concept” (p. 188).

When you review the entire speech of President Biden, one key theme stands out above all others: Democracy. This was reiterated early in his speech and was repeated several times throughout. He has picked the most under-assaulted ideal: ‘democracy’. This word was used (11) times “We’ve learned again that democracy is precious. Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed,” Biden remarked. This would be evident in another period, but after the 2020 election and the attempt to reverse it, the concept is profound.

The president made lots of appeals to unity in his inaugural speech and ignored the partisan conflicts to achieve the supreme goal of enhancing cooperation between all to serve their country. He repeated the words ‘unity’ and ‘uniting’ (11) times.

And we must meet this moment as the United States of America. If we do that, I guarantee you, we will not fail. We have never, ever, ever, failed in America when we have acted together.

This was Biden’s most forceful call for unity. It would be difficult to achieve, however, not just because of the Trump-supporting Republican Party, but also because of the historically close balance of power in the House and Senate.

Biden’s pledge to bridge the divide on policy and earn the support of those who did not support him, rather than seeing them primarily as political opponents, was a mainstay of his campaign, and it was a major theme of his acceptance speech. “ I will be a president for all Americans .” He also tried to play down the dispute between the two parties (Republican and Democratic) “ We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal .” This is evident by addressing his opponents from the Republican Party.

To all of those who did not support us, let me say this:Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me and my heart. And if you still disagree, so be it That’s democracy.That’s America. The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation’s greatest strength. Yet hear me clearly: Disagreement must not lead to disunion. And I pledge this to you: I will be a President for all Americans. I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did.

The use of idiomatic expressions is also evident in the speech; Biden says ‘If we’re willing to stand in the other person’s shoes just for a moment’ when talking about overcoming fear about America’s future through unity. This expression encourages the addresses to empathize with the speakers’ circumstances before passing any judgment.

The analysis of syntax helps the addressees sense more specifically cohesion. Within a text or phrase, cohesion is a grammatical and lexical connection that keeps the text together and provides its meaning. Halliday, Hasan ( 1976 ) state that “a good discourse has to take attention in relation between sentences and keep relevance and harmony between sentences. Discourse is a linguistic unit that is bigger than a sentence. A context in discourse is divided into two types; first is cohesion (grammatical context) and second is coherence (lexical context)”.

This was shown with the most frequent form of cohesion for the grammatical section, which is the reference with 140 pieces of evidence. Biden employed a variety of conjunctions in his speech to make it easier for his audience to understand his oration, such as “and” (97) times, “but” (16) times, and “so” (8) times.

The analysis also shows that Biden has used various examples of cohesive lexical devices, repetitions, synonyms, and contrast in order to accomplish particular ends such as emphasis, inter-connectivity, and appealing for public acceptance and support. All of these devices contribute to the accurate interpretation of the discourse. It is evident that Biden used contrast/juxtaposition as in:

‘There is truth and there are lies’; ‘Not to meet yesterday’s challenges, but today’s and tomorrow’s’; ‘Not of personal interest, but of the public good’; ‘Of unity, not division’; ‘Of light, not darkness’; ‘through storm and strife, in peace and in war’, ‘We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal’. ‘open our souls instead of hardening our hearts’; ‘ we shall write an American story of hope’ .

The use of juxtaposition makes the scene vivid and enhances the listener’s flexible thinking meta-cognition by focusing on important details drawing conclusions and reaching an accurate interpretation of communication.

The use of synonyms such as ‘ heeded-heard; indivisible-one nation; battle-war; victory-triumph; manipulated-manufactured; great nation-our nation-the country; repair-restore-heal-build; challenging-difficult; bringing America together-uniting our nation; fight-combat; anger-resentment-hatred; extremism-lawlessness-violence-terrorism ’ is evident in Biden’s speech. This type of figurative language helps in building cohesion in the speech, formulating and clarifying thoughts and ideas, emphasizing and asserting certain notions, and expressing emotions and feelings. The results are in line with other researchers’ (Lee, 2017 ; Bader & Badarneh, 2018 ) finding that political speeches are emotive; politicians can express feelings and attitudes toward certain issues. Lexical cohesion has also been established through repetition. The most repeated words and phrases in Biden’s speech are democracy, nation, unity, people, racial justice, and America. The repetitive usage of these concepts highlights them as the main basic themes of his speech.

The speaker employed deontic and epistemic modality, which implies that he has used every obligation, permission, and probability or possibility in the speech to exhibit his power by displaying commands, truth claims, and announcements. The speaker’s ideology can be revealed by the modality of permission, obligation, and possibility.

The usage of medium certainty “will” is the highest in numbers (30) times, but the use of low certainty “can” (16) times, “may” (5) times, and high certainty “must” (10) times was noticeably present. The usage of medium certainty is mainly represented by the usage of “will” to introduce future policies and present goals and visions. In critical linguistics terms, the use of low modality in a presidential address may reflect a lack of confidence in the abilities or possibilities of achieving a goal or a vision. That is, the usage of low modality gives more space to the “actor” to achieve the “goal”. For example, the usage of “can” in “ we can overcome this deadly virus ” and “ we can deliver social justice ” does not reflect strong belief, confidence, and assurance from the actor’s side to achieve the goals (social justice, overcoming the deadly virus). The usage of modal verbs in Biden’s speech reflects a balanced personality.

In modality, by using “will”, the speaker tries to convince the audience by giving a promise, and he may hope that what he says will be followed up. By using “can”, the speaker is expressing his ability. In cohesion, it is well organized, which means the speaker tries to make his speech easier to follow by everyone by using “additive conjunctions” or “transition phrases” that have the function of “listing in order”. Lastly, the generic structure of the speech is well structured.

The use of pronouns in political speeches reveals rich information about references to self, others, and identity, agency (Van Dijk, 1993 ). Biden has used the first and second pronouns meticulously to express his vision. The most frequent pronoun Biden has used is ‘we’ with a frequency of (89) which helps him establish trust and credibility in the speech, and a close relationship between him and his audience. This frequency implies that they are one united nation. Whereas he has used the pronoun ‘ I ’ with a frequency of (32). Using these types of pronouns allows the speaker to convey his ideas directly to his audience and make his intended message comprehensible. This balanced usage of pronouns reflects Fairclough’s ( 1992 ) notion of discourse as a social practice rather than a linguistic practice. The analysis demonstrates that the most prominent themes emphasized by Biden are ‘democracy and unity’. These themes have also been accentuated by the overall dominance of the pronoun “we,” which reflects Biden’s perception of America as a good society that needs to be united to successfully go through difficult times. Such notions represent his policies.

Political speech is functional and directive in its very nature. Thus, the language of politics in inaugural speeches is a significant and unique event since it affects people’s minds and hearts concerning certain pressing issues. It is a powerful tool that newly elected political leaders use to promote their new leadership ideas and strategic plans in order to convince people and attract their support. The analysis of the speech reveals that Biden’s language is easy and understandable. Biden employed a variety of rhetorical features to express his ideology. These figurative devices and techniques include creativity, indirectness, intertextuality, metaphor, repetition, cohesion, reference, and synonymy to achieve his political ideologies; assuring Americans and the world of his good intentions towards uniting Americans and working collaboratively with other nations to persevere through difficult times.

The overall themes expressed in this speech are the timeless values of unity and democracy. They are the cornerstones and key ideological components of Biden’s speech. This value-based orientation indicates their paramount recurrent semantic-cognitive features. The construction of the meaning of such values lies in the sociocultural and political context of the USA and the whole world in general and America in particular. Biden’s speech includes certain ideals, like "unity" to work together for the nation’s development, "democracy" to exhibit the "democracy" that has recently been assaulted, "equality" to treat all American people equally, and "freedom" to let individuals do whatever they want. Such themes are essential, especially in times of the worst crisis of COVID-19 encountering the world since they help him reassure his nation and the world of some improvements and promise them progress and prosperity in the years to come. To sum up, the results showed that the speaker used appropriate language in addressing the theme of unity. The speaker used religion and history as a source of rhetorical persuasive devices. The overall tone of the speech was confident, reconciliatory, and hopeful. We can say that language is central to meaningful political discourse. So, the relationship between language and politics is a very significant one.

The study examined the main linguistic strategies used in President Biden’s inauguration speech presented in 2021. The analysis has revealed that Biden in this speech intends to show his feelings (attitudes), his goals (reviewing the US administration), and his power to take over the US presidential office. It has also disclosed Biden’s ideological standpoint that is based on the central values of democracy, tolerance, and unity. Biden’s speech includes certain ideals, like "unity" to work together for the nation’s development, "democracy" to exhibit the "democracy" that has recently been assaulted, "equality" to treat all American people equally, and "freedom" to let individuals do whatever they want. To convey the intended ideological political stance, Biden used certain persuasive strategies including creativity, metaphor, contrast, indirectness, reference, and intertextuality for addressing critical issues. Creative expressions were drawn, highlighting and magnifying significant real issues concerning unity, democracy, and racial justice. Intertextuality was employed by resorting to an extract from one of the American presidents in order to convince Americans and the international community of his ideas, vision, and policy. It appeared that indirect expressions were also used for discussing politically sensitive issues in order to acquire a political and interactional advantage over his political opponents. His referencing style shows his interest in others and their unity. The choice of these strategies may have an influence on how the listeners think and believe about what the speaker says. Significant ideologies encompassing unity, equality, and freedom for US citizens were stated implicitly and explicitly. The study concluded that the effective use of linguistic and rhetorical devices is recommended to construct meaning in the world, be persuasive, and convey the intended vision and underlying ideologies.

The study suggests some implications for pedagogy and academic research. Researchers, linguists, and students interested in discourse analysis may find the data useful. The study demonstrates a sort of connection between political scientists, linguistics, and discourse analysts by clarifying distinct issues using different ideas and discourse analysis approaches. It has important ramifications for the efficient use of language to advance certain moral principles such as freedom, equality, and unity. It unravels that studying how language is used in a certain context allows people to disclose or analyze more about how things are said or done, or how they might exist in different ways in other contexts. It also shows that studying political language is crucial because it helps language users understand how a language is used by those who want power, seek to exercise it and maintain it to gain public attention, influence people’s attitudes or behaviors, provide information that people are unaware of, explain one’s attitudes or behavior, or persuade people to take certain actions. Getting students engaged in CDA research such as the current study would help them be more adept at navigating and using rhetorical devices and CDA tactics, as well as considering the underlying ideologies that underlie any written piece. Based on the analysis, it is recommended that more research studies be conducted on persuasive strategies in other political speeches.

Data availability

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Al-Khawaldeh, N.N., Rababah, L.M., Khawaldeh, A.F. et al. The art of rhetoric: persuasive strategies in Biden’s inauguration speech: a critical discourse analysis. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 936 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02450-y

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Article Contents

1 introduction, 2 related work, 3 electoral corpus, 4 evaluation of stylistic characteristics of the candidates, 5 evaluation of topical characteristics of the candidates, 6 conclusion, acknowledgments.

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Analysis of the style and the rhetoric of the 2016 US presidential primaries

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Jacques Savoy, Analysis of the style and the rhetoric of the 2016 US presidential primaries, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities , Volume 33, Issue 1, April 2018, Pages 143–159, https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqx007

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This present article examines the verbal style and rhetoric of the candidates of the 2016 US presidential primary elections. To achieve this objective, this study analyzes the oral communication forms used by the candidates during the TV debates. When considering the most frequent lemmas, the candidates can be split into two groups, one using more frequently the pronoun ‘I’, and the second favoring more the ‘we’ (which corresponds to candidates leaving the presidential run sooner). According to several overall stylistic indicators, candidate Trump clearly adopted a simple and direct communication style, avoiding complex formulation and vocabulary. From a topical perspective, our analysis generates a map showing the affinities between candidates. This investigation results in the presence of three distinct groups of candidates, the first one with the Democrats (Clinton, O’Malley, and Sanders), the second with three Republicans (Bush, Cruz, Rubio), and the last with the duo Trump and Kasich, with, at a small distance, Paul. The over-used terms and typical sentences associated with each candidate reveal their specific topics such as ‘simple flat tax’ for Cruz, ‘balanced budget’ for Kasich, negativity with Trump, or critiques against large corporations and Wall Street for Sanders.

The 2016 US presidential election was characterized by two figures, both unloved by the majority of Americans ( Yourish, 2016 ). Donald Trump seemed sincere, authentic, saying what he thinks, putting aside political correctness. For him, all appearances and comments on the media were an opportunity for self-promotion. He believed that the repetition of a simple message, even if false ( Millbank, 2016 ), is enough to persuade the citizens that it is true. His image was centered around his verbosity, egocentricity, and pomposity. Just after the announcement of his candidacy for President (16 June 2015), his candidacy was mainly viewed as marginal, without pertinent interest, and without a real future. But Trump was able to beat all his opponents and won the nomination for the Republican party (21 July 2016).

Nominated by the Democrats (28 July 2016), Hillary Clinton always appeared as a cold woman, a member of the political establishment rejected by many people. She did not like the press and the media and, in return, they do not like her much either. This aspect could be related to her first years at the White House as an overqualified First Lady who wanted to play a principal role in politics (e.g. health care reform in 1993). For some people, she was even a crook and a liar, or, at least, dishonest ( Sainato, 2016 ). When her campaign starts (14 April 2015), everything seemed simple and the road to the nomination seems without any real problem. The presence of Bernie Sanders occupying a position more on the left demonstrates that the Democratic primaries were more difficult than expected. Finally, her email case and FBI investigations were a real concern for her image in the public, especially during the general election campaign.

Even if Hillary’s candidature appeared more natural, she needed to convince the Democrats and their sympathizers that she was the right person who can win the general election. Inside the Republican party, the outcome of the fight was more uncertain, in part by the larger number of candidates (seventeen vs. six), and the leading position occupied by Jeb Bush in the beginning of the primaries. Despite the now-known election outcome, the candidates’ use of language during the primary season raises some pertinent research questions. How were the respective nominees able to win the primaries according to their speeches? Does the analysis of TV debates make it possible to detect their style and rhetoric? Can one discover the rhetorical features that can explain a Trump or Clinton success? Can one measure the stylistic distance between the candidates in both parties?

To answer these questions, the current study will focus on the US primaries’ TV debates. Here, rhetoric is defined as the art of effective and persuasive speaking, the way to motivate an audience, while language style is presented as pervasive and frequent forms used by an author for mainly esthetical value ( Biber and Conrad, 2009 ). The analysis will use the oral communication form, a more direct and spontaneous way of interacting, reflecting more closely the personal style of each candidate. The style of the written messages (evident in prepared statements by the candidates) differs from the oral dialogue ( Biber et al. , 2002 ). Moreover, the statements are certainly authored, at least in part, by a team of speechwriters. Therefore, the two forms of communication must be analyzed separately.

The rest of this article is organized as follows. The next section presents some related research in computer-based analysis of political speeches. The third section presents briefly some statistics about our corpus. The fourth describes and applies different measurements and methods to define and compare the rhetoric and style of the different candidates. The fifth section visualizes the relative position of each candidate in stylistic and topical spaces. A conclusion draws the main findings of this study.

Political texts have been the subject of various studies discussing different aspects of them. Focusing on governmental speeches written in French, Labbé and Monière (2003 ; 2008a ) have created a set of governmental corpora such as the ‘Speeches from the Throne’ (Canada and Quebec), a corpus of the general policy statements of French governments ( Labbé and Monière, 2003 ; 2008a ) as well as a collection of press releases covering the French presidential campaign of 2012 ( Labbé and Monière, 2013 ; Arnold and Labbé, 2015 ). Similar research has been conducted with other languages, such as Italian ( Pauli and Tuzzi, 2009 ). From these analyses, one can observe, for example, that governmental institutions tend to smooth out the differences between political parties when exercising command. Moreover, the temporal period of the documents constitutes an important factor explaining the variations between presidents or prime ministers. The presence of a strong leader is usually accompanied with a real change in the style and vocabulary of governmental speeches ( Labbé and Monière, 2003 ; Savoy, 2015c ).

Focusing on the USA, recent studies confirm these findings as, for example, using the ‘State of the Union’ ( Savoy, 2015a ) or inaugural addresses ( Kubát and Cech, 2016 ). Beside time frame, exceptional events (e.g. worldwide war, deep economic depression) may change noticeably the style. These results present also the stylistic evolution over more than two centuries and can be compared to those achieved using traditional methods as, for example, by Lim (2002) .

Differentiations between political parties can however be observed as, for example, studies based on tweets ( Sylwester and Purver, 2015 ). Such differences tend to be correlated with psychological factors. For example, positive emotion words occur more frequently in Democrats’ tweets than in Republican ones, as well as swear expressions, or first singular person pronouns (e.g. I, me). In a related study using a training corpus, Laver et al. (2003) describe a methodology to extract political positions from texts. In a similar vein, Yu (2008) demonstrates that machine learning methods (e.g. SVM and naïve Bayes) can be trained to classify congressional speeches according to political parties. Better performance levels can be achieved when the training examples are extracted from the same time period as the test set. In another study, Yu (2013) reveals that (political) feminine figures tend to use emotional words more frequently and employ more personal pronouns than men. A more general overview of using different computer-based strategy to detect and extract topical information from political texts can be found in ( Grimmer and Stewart, 2013 ).

The web-based communication (e.g. tweets, blogs, chats) was used by O’Connor et al. (2010) to estimate the popularity of the Obama administration. This study found a positive correlation between the presidential approval polls and positive tweets containing the hashtag #obama. Such a selection strategy produces a low recall because many tweets about Obama’s administration are not considered). As a tweet is rather short (in mean eleven words), the sentiment estimation is simply the count of the number of positive and negative words appearing in the OpinionFinder dictionary ( Wilson et al. , 2005 ).

Also grounded on several dictionaries (or categories), Young and Soroka (2012) describe how one can detect and measure sentiments appearing in political texts. The suggested approach is rather similar to O’Connor et al. ’s work (2010), counting the frequency of occurrence of words appearing in a dictionary of positive or negative emotion words. Using also some lists of words, Hart (1984) has designed and implemented a political text analyzer called Diction . Based on US presidential speeches, that study presents the rhetorical and stylistic differences between the US presidents from Truman to Reagan, while a more recent book ( Hart et al. , 2013 ) exposes the stylistic variations from G. W. Bush to Obama. Using the Diction system, Bligh et al. (2010) analyze the rhetoric of H. Clinton during the 2008 presidential election. Hillary appears more feminine than the other candidates, using more ‘I’ than ‘we’, and showing a higher frequency in the category ‘Human interest’ (e.g. family, man, person, etc.).

As another example, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC; Tausczik and Pennebaker, 2010 ) regroups different categories used to evaluate the author’s psychological status (e.g. feminine, emotion, leadership), as well as her/his style (e.g. grounded on personal pronouns ( Pennebaker, 2011 )). The underlying hypothesis is to assume that the words serve as guides to the way the author thinks, acts, or feels. In LIWC, the generation of the word lists was done based on the judgments of three experts instead of simply concatenating various existing lists. Using the LIWC system, Slatcher et al. (2007) were able to determine the personalities of different political candidates (US presidential election in 2004). They defined the psychological portrait both on single measurements (e.g. the relative frequency of different pronouns, positive emotions) and using a set of composite indices reflecting the cognitive complexity, presidentially, or honesty of each candidate. These personality measurements were in agreement with different opinion polls. For example, G. W. Bush used more frequently the pronoun ‘I’, positive emotion words (e.g. happy, truly, win), and the future tense. The public perceived J. Kerry as a kind of depressed person, serious, somber, and cold, adopting more frequently negative emotion expressions (e.g. sad, worthless, cut, lost) and physical words (e.g. head, ache, sleep).

To conclude briefly, previous studies have mainly analyzed governmental speeches, and less frequently the electoral speeches ( Boller, 2004 ) or related messages (e.g. such as press releases; Labbé and Monière, 2013 ). A few studies focus on the legislative level (e.g. the Congress) and these studies are mainly grounded on the written form. More recently, the web-based communication channels have been studied, but in this perspective, those studies are using more often tweets and less frequently blogs, or audio and video media (e.g. YouTube). The present study is focusing on two less explored aspects, namely, the electoral campaign on the one hand, and on the other, the oral form.

To analyze the rhetoric and style adopted by the candidates during the primaries of the 2016 US primary election, the transcripts of the TV debates have been downloaded from the Internet (mainly from the Web site www.presidency.ucsb.edu ). For the Republican candidates (Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, John Kasich, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump), twelve TV debates were organized, from the 1st one held on 6 August 2015 with ten candidates, to the last one organized on 10 March 2016 with four candidates. For the Democrats (Hillary Clinton, Martin O’Malley, and Bernie Sanders), one can count nine TV debates held from 13 October 2015 (with five candidates) to 9 March 2016 (with two candidates).

Due to space limitations, not all possible candidates have been retained. Some persons never appear in a TV debate (e.g. Pataki (R), Jindal (R), Lessig (D)) or just appear in one (e.g. Webb (D)) or two debates (e.g. Walker (R)) while others have been ignored because they have played a minor role during the electoral campaign (e.g. Carson (R) or Christie (R)).

From a stylistic point of view, this corpus is homogenous, corresponding to an oral communication form, extracted from a short period of time, and with the same main objectives (convincing the people, answering questions, presenting their ideas and solutions). Several factors influencing the style are therefore fixed. The remaining variations can be largely explained by the speaker.

Even if the topics are not directly and fully controlled by the candidates, the debate format corresponds to a more spontaneous form of communication, able to reveal more closely the real person behind her/his projected image. Of course, one can raise the question of the speaker’s spontaneity because Donna Brazile, who worked for CNN, provided, at least once, prepared questions to Clinton before a debate. This phenomenon is assumed to be the exception rather than the norm.

One can consider that electoral speeches delivered by the candidates correspond also to an oral communication form and thus can be included in our corpus. However, as mentioned by Biber and Conrad (2009 , p. 262):

Language that has its source in writing but performed in speech does not necessarily follow the generalization [written vs. oral]. That is, a person reading a written text aloud will produce speech that has the linguistic characteristics of the written text. Similarly, written texts can be memorized and then spoken.

Some statistics about candidates’ speeches and comments

As shown in Table 1 , Paul and O’Malley correspond to the smallest values, both being present for a relatively short period of time during this electoral campaign. Clinton appears with the largest number of tokens, followed by Sanders, Trump, Rubio, and Cruz.

To highlight the different styles adopted by the candidates, Biber and Conrad (2009) indicate that such a study should be based on ubiquitous and frequent forms. Thus, the analysis of the most frequent ones is certainly a good starting point, as shown in the first sub-section. The second proposes to consider four overall stylistic measurements and applies them to the different candidates while the last sub-section describes the differences in the distribution of the grammatical categories between candidates.

4.1 Most frequent lemmas

To analyze the rhetoric and style of presidential writings, the first quantitative linguistics studies focused on the word usages and their frequencies. As the English language has a relatively simple morphology, working on inflected forms (e.g. ‘we, us, ours’, or ‘wars, war’) or lemmas (dictionary entries such as ‘we’ or ‘war’ from the previous example) often lead to similar conclusions.

To define the lemma of each token, the part-of-speech (POS) tagger developed by Toutanova et al. (2003) was first applied. Given a sentence as input, this system is able to add the corresponding POS tag to each token. For example, from the sentence ‘But I also know this problem is not going away’, the POS tagger returns ‘But/ cc I/ prp also/ rb know/ vbp this/ dt problem/ nn is/ vbz not/ rb going/ vbg away/ rb ./.’. Tags may be attached to nouns ( nn , noun, singular, nns noun, plural, nnp proper noun, singular), verbs ( vb , lemma, vbg gerund or present participle, vbp non-3rd-person singular present, vbz 3rd-person singular present), adjectives ( jj , jjr adjective in comparative form), personal pronouns ( prp ), prepositions ( in ), and adverbs ( rb ). These morphological tags ( Marcus et al. , 1993 ) correspond mainly to those used in the Brown corpus ( Francis and Kucera, 1982 ). With this information one can derive the lemma by removing the plural form of nouns (e.g. jobs/ nns → job/ nn ) or by substituting inflectional suffixes of verbs (e.g. detects/ vbz → detect/ vb ).

Our first analysis considers the most frequent lemmas occurring in the oral interventions of the candidates during the TV debates of the primaries. Unsurprisingly, the article ‘the’ and the verb ‘be’ (lemma of the word types am, is, are, was, etc.) appear regularly in the first two ranks. Looking at the most frequent lemmas in the Brown corpus ( Francis and Kucera, 1982 ), the first two are the same, but after them the order changes. In the Brown corpus, the top ten most frequent lemmas are as follows: the, be, of, and, to, a, in, he, have, it.

The top ten most frequent lemmas according to TV debates

Note. The personal pronouns are depicted in bold.

In this table, one can see another interesting fact related to the frequencies of the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘I’. Former governors tend to use more frequently the ‘we’ than the ‘I’ (e.g. Bush, Kasich) with O’Malley having a very distinctive style in this point of view. Usually Senators (e.g. Cruz, Paul, Clinton, Sanders) tend to prefer using the pronoun ‘I’, at least during an electoral campaign. The candidates who stayed longer in this campaign have a clear preference for the ‘I’ over the ‘we’. The pronoun ‘we’ stays ambiguous (Who is behind the ‘we’? Myself and the future government? Me and the people? Me and the workers? Me and the Congress?). Finally, the champion in the usage of ‘I’ is Trump who clearly has adopted a distinct style in the campaign, putting the light more on his ego.

4.2 Global stylistic measurements

To define an overall measurement of the style, various studies have proposed different measures. As a first indicator, one can consider the mean sentence length (MSL) reflecting a syntactical choice. The sentence boundaries are defined by the POS tagger ( Toutanova et al. , 2003 ) and correspond to ‘strong’ punctuation symbols (namely, periods, question, and exclamation marks). Usually, a longer sentence is more complex to understand, especially in the oral communication form. Using the ‘State of the Union’ addresses given by the Founding Fathers, this average value is 39.6 (with Madison depicting the highest MSL with 44.8 tokens/sentence). With Obama, the MSL decreases to 18.5 tokens/sentence. These examples indicate clearly that the style is changing over time. Currently, the preference goes to a shorter formulation, simpler to understand for the audience.

Four global stylistic measurements according to TV debates

Note. Extreme values are depicted in bold.

A relatively high LD percentage indicates a more complex text, containing more information. Using the transcripts of the TV debates, the LD values vary from 36.6% (Trump) to 44.6% (Cruz). Trump’s style appears, here too, as distinct from the others, providing his answers and comments around functional words. Cruz adopts an opposite style, focusing more on topical forms and expressions.

As an additional global stylistic measurement, the frequency of big words (composed of six letters or more, and denoted BW) can be analyzed ( Tausczik and Pennebaker, 2010 ). A text or a dialogue with a high percentage of BW tends to be more complex to understand. This fact is confirmed by recent studies:

‘One finding of cognitive science is that words have the most powerful effect on our minds when they are simple. The technical term is basic level. Basic-level words tend to be short. … Basic-level words are easily remembered; those messages will be best recalled that use basic-level language.’ ( Lakoff and Wehling, 2012 , p. 41)

This rhetoric problem was recognized by previous US president such as President Johnson who told his speechwriters: ‘I want four-letter words, and I want four sentences to the paragraph.’ ( Hart, 1984 ). Table 3 indicates that the percentage of BW varies from 18.3% (Trump) to 26.4% (Cruz, and Sanders). Grounded on the MSL, LD, and BW indicators, one can see that Trump is adopting a more direct communication style, selecting simple words and producing short sentences. Senators Cruz or O’Malley have a more sophisticated communication style, employing longer sentences and a more complex lexicon.

The Type-Token Ratio (TTR) or the relationship between the vocabulary size and the number of word types ( Baayen, 2008 ) corresponds to our last global stylistic measure. High values indicate the presence of a rich vocabulary showing that the underlying text exposes many different topics or that the author tends to present a theme from several angles with different formulations. To compute this value, one can divide the vocabulary size (number of types) by the text length (number of tokens). This estimator has the drawback of being instable, tending to decrease with text length ( Baayen, 2008 ). To avoid this problem, a better computation is provided in ( Covington and McFall, 2010 ) or ( Popescu, 2009 ), suggesting taking the moving average of TTR. This computation technique has been adopted.

From data depicted in Table 3 , one can see that the TTR value reaches a minimum of 29.7 (Trump) to a maximum of 37.9 (O’Malley). This value indicates that Trump prefers to reuse the same words and expressions, repeating his main ideas and convictions. On the other hand, O’Malley or Cruz (TTR: 37.3) have opted for a larger coverage requiring a larger number of distinct words and phrases. It should be noted that, regarding the four indices, Clinton is closer to O’Malley or Cruz than to Trump.

4.3 POS distribution

POS distribution according to TV debates

Note. The maximum value per grammatical category is shown in bold, and the minimum in italics.

Data depicted in Table 4 indicate that O’Malley is the candidate choosing most frequently the noun construction (largest percentage of nouns, and adjectives). The verb phrase is used most frequently by Trump with the largest percentage of verbs and adverbs and the lowest frequencies of nous, determiners, and prepositions. The difference between these two candidates is characteristic, with O’Malley more oriented toward an explanation requiring usually more nouns while Trump turns toward the action and its high usage of verbs. Table 4 confirms that Trump owns a style very distinct than the others. Moreover, Trump is using pronouns less—except I—than the others.

To obtain an overall measure of the intensity of the action over the descriptive part of a text, Kubát and Cech (2016) suggest to compute the ratio between the proportion of verbs divided by the sum of the proportion of the verbs and adjectives. The underlying idea is to quantify the activity by verbs while the descriptiveness of a text is represented by the proportion of adjectives. The last row of Table 4 reports the values of this Q-index for all candidates. Kasich depicts the highest value leading clearly more toward action. With a similar value and following the same tendency, one can find Trump and Paul. On the other hand, O’Malley shows the smallest Q-index value indicating more a text oriented toward description. The same feature can be assigned to Sanders.

The previous section focusses mainly on stylistic features, both at the lexical and syntactical level. When looking more at the content of their utterances, one can also observe differences between the candidates. This analysis is based on the thematic concentration of a text, providing a first overview at the recurrent topical terms used by each candidate. In the second sub-section, an intertextual distance is presented and used to derive graphs representing stylistic and topical affinities between the candidates. Finally, the terms and sentences specific to each candidate will be computed and some examples will be given.

5.1 Thematic concentration

Recently, Popescu (2009) and Cech et al. (2015) have proposed an h -point to measure the thematic concentration of a text. To compute this value, the word types are ranked according to their absolute frequency, from the most frequent to the least frequent one. The h -point is defined as the point where the frequency is equal to the rank. From this h -point, one can assume that types appearing before the h th rank are function words while those occurring after correspond to lexical or topical words (the very vocabulary).

h -point and most frequently used thematic words per candidate

Note. The maximum value is shown in bold, and the minimum in italics.

According to this formulation, when all word types appearing before the h -point are functional words, the PTC value is 0. On the other hand, when all those types are lexical words, PTC reaches the maximum value of 1.0 or 100%. In Table 5 , the second row indicates the PTC values for all candidates, showing clearly that Sanders presents the highest PTC value (12.12%) while O’Malley exposes the smallest (4.26%). Sanders’ answers and remarks are clearly more focused on a few topics. With Trump and Clinton, one can find also relatively high PTC values compared to the other candidates. Both are preferring to repeat their arguments instead of introducing other subjects. On the other hand, Bush, Paul, and, to a lesser extent, Cruz are closer to O’Malley’s PTC value, being able to present alternative formulations or covering more distinct subjects.

5.2 Stylistic and topical distance between candidates

As each candidate is represented by her/his remarks in the TV debates, one can compute a distance reflecting their similarities ( Labbé and Labbé, 2006 ). A text is, however, a composite item in which one finds both the style with its lexical, syntactical, or discourse factors, and the recurrent words belonging to the topics. To distinguish between these two main components, the first map will use the stylistic aspects while the second will take into account the topical elements. Splitting the vocabulary into two distinct parts is relatively known in stylistic ( Damerau, 1975 ), authorship attribution ( Argamon and Levitan, 2005 ; Stamatatos, 2009 ), or in quantitative linguistics studies ( Tuzzi, 2010 ). The current analysis follows this principle to consider the style, on the one hand and, on the other, the content.

To reflect the style, one can consider the k top most frequent lemmas from our electoral corpus. No general theory specifies precisely the k value, but a value from 200 to 500 represents a pertinent choice justified by various studies ( Savoy, 2015b ). Taking another strategy, one can use the h -point splitting the vocabulary into two parts. As shown previously, the h -point is rather small, and thus, the words reflecting more the style (e.g. functional words) are rather limited. In the current study, the stylistic elements will be the words appearing in the functional words list (409 entries), and used previously in defining the LD measure.

Other intertextual measures have been chosen as, for example, the chi-square ( Grieve, 2007 ), the Delta ( Burrows, 2002 ), or using the Kullback-Leibler divergence ( Zhao and Zobel, 2007 ). The Labbé’s measure ( Labbé, 2007 ) has however demonstrated its effectiveness in various authorship attribution problems such as in literary works ( Labbé and Labbé, 2006 ), in historical newspaper articles ( Savoy, 2013 ), or in political speeches ( Savoy, 2015d ).

Grounded on this measure, one can compute the intertextual distance between all nine candidates. Displaying directly the 9 × 9 matrix containing these distances has a limited interest. Knowing that this matrix is symmetric and that the distance to itself is nil, we still have (81 − 9)/2 values. A better solution is to apply a clustering method (e.g. hierarchical clustering built on the complete link) to visualize the different groups of candidates according to their stylistic profiles. Recently, such distance matrices can be represented by a tree-based visualization method respecting ‘approximately’ the real distances between all nodes ( Baayen, 2008 ). This new representation has been chosen, and the result is displayed in Fig. 1 obtained using the R software ( Paradis, 2011 ; Saitou and Nei, 1987 ). Using graphical views to represent results of stylistic analysis is not new in quantitative linguistics studies. More often however, such displays correspond to scatterplots, principal component analysis views, or correspondence analysis figures ( Lebart et al. , 1998 ; Greenacre, 2017 ). Tree-based graphs are more appropriate when displaying similarities between author profiles or stylistic affinities between works ( Labbé and Labbé, 2006 ; Labbé, 2007 ).

Stylistic distance between candidates

In this figure, the distance between two candidates is indicated by the lengths of the lines connecting them. For example, starting with Bush, one can follow the branch until reaching the central point, then one can go along the lines leading to the second person (e.g. Trump or Clinton).

To generate Fig. 1 , only the functional words (409 entries) have been used to reflect the style of each candidate. Based on this perspective, the longest distance (0.251) connects Trump and O’Malley, and the second longest (0.181) links Paul to O’Malley. The third longest distance (0.180) can be found between Trump and Cruz. The two closest candidates are Bush and Rubio (0.104), while the second shortest distance (0.114) joins Clinton with Sanders. More generally, Fig. 1 depicts three main groups, one Democrat, and two Republicans. From a stylistic point of view, the Republican cluster {Bush, Cruz, Rubio} is well separated from the second Republican group {Kasich, Trump, and with a smaller additional distance Paul} as well as for the Democrats {Clinton, O’Malley, Sanders}.

To build Fig. 2 , the intertextual distance is computed according to topical words, and no word used to draw Fig. 1 is present in the elaboration of Fig. 2 . To achieve this, the computation ignored all functional words for all texts. In this figure, the longest distance (0.510) connects Paul and O’Malley, and the second longest distance (0.496) links Trump to O’Malley. The third longest distance (0.467) can be found between Cruz and O’Malley. The two closest candidates are Clinton and Sanders (0.346), while the second shortest distance (0.360) joins Trump with Kasich.

Topical distance between candidates

As in Figs 1 and 2 reveals two Republican groups with the same members as in Fig. 1 . Trump’s topics are relatively similar to those presented by Kasich and, with some distance, with those exposed by Paul. With a longer distance, one can find the team Rubio and Cruz, with Bush having some affinities with this pair. On the bottom part, one can find the Democrats, with a shorter distance between Clinton and Sanders than with O’Malley.

5.3 Most specific terms

The analysis of the most frequent terms reveals some important themes of the 2016 primary election. But each candidate wants to promote his/her own specific point of view on some issues, and must underline his differences with others. Just considering the ten most frequent words, similar sets appearing with each candidate and the difference between them lies on their ranking as shown previously. Moreover, such analysis reveals more the style than the preferred themes. For example, from data depicted in Table 2 , Trump, Clinton, and Sander prefers using ‘I’ instead of ‘we’, while Kasich, O’Malley, and Bush are using more frequently the pronoun ‘we’.

Thus, which keywords or expressions can well describe each candidate and can be used to denote his/her difference? How can one define them, and, from a statistical point of view, be sure that the proposed terms are significantly over-used by the candidate? To measure the specificity attached to a term ( Lafon, 1980 ; Muller, 1992 ), the corpus is split into two disjoint parts denoted P 0 and P 1 . For a given term t i , its absolute frequency in P 0 is given by tf i0 , and in P 1 by tf i1 . In this study, P 0 corresponds to all comments by a given candidate, while P 1 denotes all other comments and remarks. Thus, for the entire corpus, the absolute frequency of the term t i is tf i0 + tf i1 . The total number of lemmas in part P 0 (or its length) is denoted n 0 , similarly with P 1 and n 1 , and the length of the entire corpus is defined by n = n 0 + n 1.

It is assumed that, for any term t i , its distribution follows a binomial law, with parameters n 0 and p( t i ) representing the probability of the term t i being randomly selected from the entire corpus. Using the maximum likelihood principle, this probability is estimated as p( t i ) = ( tf i0 + tf i1 )/ n . Of course, other models can be used as, for example, the hypergeometric one ( Baayen, 2008 ) which could be viewed as the exact distribution. However, the binomial formulation is easier to use and gives a good approximation.

Applying this procedure, the term specificity can be computed according to the text P 0 . Those Z score values can verify whether the underlying lemma is used proportionally with roughly the same frequency in both parts (Z score value close to 0). With a positive Z score larger than a fixed threshold δ (e.g. 3), one can conclude—with less than 1% chance of error—that the term is ‘significantly over-used’ in P 0 . In other words, the text P 0 contains significantly more occurrences of the corresponding term than expected by a uniform distribution over the whole corpus. A large negative Z score (less than -δ) indicates than the corresponding term is significantly under-used in P 0 .

The top ten most specific terms per candidate

A more interesting finding is the presence of the pronoun ‘I’ in the most over-used terms by only two runners: Trump and Clinton. A candidate who wants to stay in the race must put forward him/her-self. After all the election is the process to select one person. Of course, behind this person, a political program must also appear. Some of the terms depicted in Table 6 give some indications about this aspect as, for example, ‘IRS, tax, amnesty’ with Cruz, ‘fossil, fuel, Wall, Street’ with Sanders. Similar themes appear under several candidates with different terminology such as ‘caliphate’ (Bush), ‘Islamic’ (Cruz), ‘ISIL’ (O’Malley). For Clinton, the term ‘affordable’ must be related to the Affordable Care Act (or health insurance reform).

5.4 Most specific sentences

Providing the most over-used terms is sometimes not enough to have a clear understanding of the candidate’s position on a given issue. Can one be more precise than the simple sequence of isolated words such as ‘balanced’, ‘budget’, ‘we’ (Kasich) or ‘IRS’, ‘tax’ (Cruz)? One possible approach is to extract a reduced set of specific sentences from each candidate. Such a sentence can be defined as the one having the largest number of over-used terms. As it is extracted from a transcript, the sentence is not necessarily syntactically perfect.

Based on this definition, one can read some examples of the most specific sentences per candidate. As an interesting first case, one can analyze the most characteristic sentence from Kasich’s comments, which is the following:

‘I have balanced budgets , the federal budget , the state of Ohio budget , we 're running a 2 billion dollar surplus , we ’re up 400,000 jobs , and in Washington we were able to have significant job growth whenever we balanced the budget of which I was the architect .’ (J. Kasich, 6 February 2016)

In this example, terms having a Z score larger than 5.0 are depicted in italics. The sentence is longer that the MSL (18.3) for this candidate. From a lexical perspective, one can see the over-used term ‘budget’, usually more frequently used in governmental speeches than in the electoral ones. Here the candidate wants to put forward his competence in generating balanced budgets as Governor of Ohio. During an electoral campaign, the word ‘tax’ is clearly more recurrent than ‘budget’ to discuss financial issue, in part because the term ‘tax’ is closer to citizens’ perception than the budget is. As another aspect, one can view that the preferred pronoun is ‘we’ and not ‘I’. With this choice, the person can be viewed by the audience as distant and cold ( Pennebaker, 2011 ). Looking back to Table 6 , one can see that the terms ‘Ohio’, ‘balanced’, ‘budget’, and ‘we’ and the first four most specific words describing Kasich’s utterances.

For Cruz, the most significant words depicted in Table 6 have a clearer meaning when reading two of his most specific sentences.

‘So the way you do it is you pass a tax plan like the tax plan I've introduced: a simple flat tax , 10 percent for individuals, and a 16 percent business flat tax , you abolish the IRS and here's the critical point, Maria , the business flat tax enables us to abolish the corporate income tax , the death tax , the Obamacare taxes , the payroll taxes , and they're border- adjustable , so every export pays no taxes whatsoever .’ (T. Cruz, 14 January 2016)

‘ And I' ll tell you , Hugh you know, it's interesting now that Donald promises that he will appoint justices who … who will defend religious liberty , but this is a man who , for 40 years, has given money to Jimmy Carter , to Joe Biden, to Hillary Clinton, to Chuck Schumer , to Harry Reid .’ (T. Cruz, 25 February 2016)

In this first example, the fiscal question appears with a proposition for a ‘simple flat tax’ and in the second, an attack against Trump, but a religious concern appears also in the background. These examples show that Cruz’s rhetoric is more complex with the highest LD mean and the largest percentage of BW (see Table 3 ). Moreover, Cruz’s explanations tend to include more names (see Table 4 ), and many of them (IRS, Maria, Obamacare, Donald, Carter, Biden, …) occur in these examples.

As demonstrated previously, Trump opted for a simple and direct communication style, preferring short sentences with simple words. The following remarks illustrate these aspects.

‘They don't like seeing bad trade deals , they don't like seeing higher taxes, they don't like seeing a loss of their jobs where our jobs have just been devastated.’ (D. Trump, 10 March 2016)

‘ I ‘ m spending all of my money, I ’ m not spending, I'm not getting any, I turned down, I turn down so much, I could have right now from special interests and donors, I could have double and triple what he ' s got.’ (D. Trump, 16 September 2015)

‘ Just excuse me , one second, Rand, … if you don't mind, Rand, you know, you are on last, you do have your 1 percent.’ (D. Trump, 16 September 2015)

In a few words, Trump is able to talk not about a single but a few topics. This sentence was selected through the over-used words ‘I’, ‘not’, ‘deal’ (see Table 6 ), as well as ‘bad’, ‘do’, ‘have’, and ‘just’. In the three sentences above, most of the words are less than six letters long (short words), and many of them are functional words (explaining his low LD). Moreover, these examples demonstrate the frequent use of symploces (repetition of the same formulation, e.g. they don’t like seeing …) in Trump’s comments. The last example illustrates how Trump can push away his opponents to place himself in the center of the debate.

From the set of the ten most over-used terms corresponding to H. Clinton depicted in Table 6 , the first following sentence contains four (Senator, Sanders, to, I). As previously with Trump, the first person singular pronoun is clearly over-used (I, me). This phenomenon appears in other languages and countries when analyzing electoral speeches as, for example, in France ( Labbé and Monière, 2008b ). A presidential electoral process can be positioned around one person or around a few issues (or programs). In the current study, two candidates (Clinton and Trump) have opted for centering their communication around their person. In the following sentences, one can also see two topics, usually more related to the Democrats, namely education, and health care reform.

‘Look, I have the greatest respect for Senator Sanders and for his supports and I 'm going to keep working as hard as I can to reach as many people of all ages about what I will do, what the experience and the ideas that I have that I will bring to the White House and I hope to have their support when I 'm the Democratic nominee.’ (H. Clinton, 17 January 2016)

‘ I think now what I ' ve called for is counsel for every child so that no child has to face any kind of process without someone who speaks and advocates for that child so that the right decision hopefully can be made.’ (H. Clinton, 11 February 2016)

‘Let’s make the Affordable Care Act work for everybody.’ (H. Clinton, 4 February 2016)

The specific sentences extracted from Sanders’ answers explain clearly his positions with respect to Wall Street, some of the large companies, or on education. Moreover, the first and last examples tackle one of the recurrent topics for the Democrat, for which the terms ‘college’, ‘university’, and ‘tuition’ are specific in Sanders’ rhetoric.

‘ Yes , I do believe that now after the American people bailed Wall Street out, yes , they should pay a Wall Street speculation tax so that we can make public colleges and universities tuition -free.’ (B. Sanders, 11 February 2016)

‘Why does the fossil fuel industry pay, spend huge amounts of money on campaign contributions ?’ (B. Sanders, 11 February 2016)

‘I do believe that in the year 2016 we have to look terms of public education as colleges as part of public education making public colleges and universities tuition free.’ (B. Sanders, 11 February 2016)

One can complement this study by considering the terms ignored or used very infrequently in this primary election. For example, no selected candidate is discussing really the problem of the national debt. The word ‘debt’ appears in some utterances, but mainly in the context of the education debt for the Democrats. In the Republican party, the federal debt is debated by Rubio, and marginally by Kasich, and Paul.

When a question is discussed, the choice of the word can make the difference. With the immigration issue for example, Trump prefers using the term ‘immigration’ presenting this question more at an abstract level. On the other hand, Clinton could want to accentuate the human aspect and uses in this case the word ‘immigrants’. Slight lexical differences can sometimes be important because, as mentioned by Lakoff and Wehling (2012) , ‘language is politics’.

This article has analyzed the style and the rhetoric used by the candidates during the 2016 US primary election. More precisely, this study has focused on the oral communication form using different TV debates in both political parties, a form less observed in previous studies.

During this primary election, Donald Trump presents clearly an atypical figure, employing short sentences, a reduced vocabulary, repeating the same arguments with simple words (see Table 2 ). When considering the most frequent lemmas, he is the single candidate to have the pronoun ‘I’ is the second rank (after the article ‘the’). The intensity of his ego can also be revealed by the fact that the most specific term in his dialogue is also the pronoun ‘I’ (see Table 6 ). In his answers, Trump prefers using intensively the verb construction (see Table 4 ), the pronoun ‘I’, and the negation (see Table 6 ). Among his most specific terms, one can see ‘Mexico’, and ‘deal’ reflecting two of his main concerns (immigration, and commercial trade agreements).

Hillary Clinton can also be characterized by a large use of the pronoun ‘I’ (fourth most frequent lemma, see Table 2 ) that is also over-used (see Table 6 ). None of the other Democrat candidates shows a clear intensive use of this pronoun. When considering overall stylistic indicators (see Table 3 ), Clinton, O’Malley, and Sanders present a high LD value as well as a higher number of BW and TTR ratio than the mean. Looking at her most specific sentences, Clinton tends to produce rather long sentences reflecting a more complex reasoning.

From overall stylistic measurements shown in Table 3 , Ted Cruz appears with higher values than the mean. His answers contain more nouns and names adopting a more descriptive rhetoric. As depicted in Figs 1 and 2 , Cruz represents a distinctive fraction of the Republican party. As one can see from his most specific terms and sentences, Cruz’s concerns are related to a reform of the fiscal system, and the health care system.

Our findings must be confirmed by other studies comparing other electoral campaigns and taking into account the written form (e.g. electoral speeches, party manifestos, Web sites of the candidates, social networks information flow).

This research was supported, in part, by the NSF under Grant #200021_149665/1. The author wants to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions and remarks.

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Uncategorized | Rhetorical Devices in Barack Obama’s 2013…

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Uncategorized | rhetorical devices in barack obama’s 2013 inauguration speech.

Having completed the inaugural day festivities and surprising guests on White House tours, President Barack Obama will be heading back to the work of governing the country.

While he does so, we decided to take a look at many of the rhetorical strategies he employed in his inaugural address. Points of the speech are identified by times they occur in the video below.

for the transcript of the speech.

I. Start slowly and with an increasingly broad audience. (0:56 to 1:08)

Obama has been compared to a preacher. He began his address as many preachers do by speaking slowly and gradually acknowledging the audiences to whom he was speaking. He started with his Vice President, moved to Chief Justice John Roberts and the members of Congress before turning to his fellow citizens. By doing this he respected the power of the political offices and made it clear that he is part of the citizenry.

II. Ground the address in the founding documents and religions and the promises they contain. (1:12 to 2:22)

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are arguably the most important documents in American political history. Obama explicitly drew on them when he read the opening sentence of the Declaration of Independence, spoke about the affirmation of the Constitution by holding the inauguration and repeatedly said, “We, the people,” which are the first words of the Constitution’s preamble. Obama also asserted the Americans’ allegiance to the idea of democracy makes us exceptional.

III. Insert religion into the speech. (2:47 to 2:53)

Although there is constitutionally-mandated separation of Church and State in the United States, political leaders of both stripes often ground their speeches in mentions of God at the beginning and ending of their addresses. Obama was no different, saying that freedom is a gift from God and closing by asking God to bless the people who attend and the country as a whole.

IV. Refer to political hero Abraham Lincoln. (3:10 to 3:16, 3:30 to 3:41)

Obama’s positive regard for the 16th President, another lawyer from Illinois, is no secret. In his address, he twice referred to him. First time alluded to closing of the Gettysburg Address, the second time he quoted directly from Lincoln’s 1858 House Divided speech, which he delivered at the Illinois State Capitol.

V. Place the current moment in an historic context and introduce a central metaphor. (3:24 to 4:26)

Obama placed the current moment in an historic context of Americans’ acting to make the promises of the nation real and meeting the challenges set before them. He talked about coming through the Civil War as a free nation, building a modern economy and deciding to care for the poor and vulnerable in the society. These are the earlier stages of the never-ending journey he describes. The image of the journey provided coherence for the earlier actions and set Obama up for his later assertion that the journey is an incomplete one.

VI. Emphasize the task’s collective nature. (4:47 to 5:41)

Obama did this in several different ways. He specifically said that preserving individual freedom takes collective action and said that the nation’s challenges can only be met if we act as one nation and one people.

VII. Use repetition.

This is another preacherly device that Obama used throughout his speech. He used “You and I” two times, “Together, we” three times, said “We, the people” four times and declared that our “Our journey is not yet complete” five times. These phrases reinforced the underlying message and built emotional momentum.

VIII. Dispute assumed contradictions. (8:24 to 8:53, 11:27 to 11:38)

Obama has done this throughout his career, perhaps most famously where he said in the 2004 Democratic National Convention that there are no blue or red states, but only the United States of America. Here he said that the nation does not have to choose between caring for the previous generation and investing in young people and that lasting security does not require perpetual war.

IX. Articulate a combination of beliefs and specific issues. (10:02 to 11:24)

This is a reciprocal process of pointing to specific issues like climate change with a statement of belief, in this case that we are have a responsibility to posterity. By talking about both Obama sought to avoid being overly technocratic and policy oriented on the one hand, and excessively ungrounded on the other.

X. Mention key social movements as an illustration of We the People. (13:46 to 14:23)

Obama made it clear that he considers people whose rights were not initially granted during the constitution an integral part of the people who have ennobled the nation through their struggles to have it be true to the common creed. This list includes the women’s rights supporters who gathered at Seneca Falls, the civil rights marchers who protested and were beaten in Selma, Alabama, and the gay and lesbian people who protested their abuse during the Stonewall riots in 1970. Obama also paid tribute to the ordinary people who participated in the March on Washington in 1963, specifically mentioning Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He used the same line about coming to hearing “a King” in his presidential announcement in February 2007.

XI. Build to an emotional crescendo and define the task of the moment. (14:30 to 16:16)

Obama started speaking with more energy and volume and emotional force as he progressed. By saying our journey is not complete, Obama asserted that there is still more work to be done that is our generation’s task. He said that it is our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began before identifying the specific tasks that need to be accomplished and then making the broader point that the ultimate goal is to make the rights and values that Jefferson articulated in the Declaration of Independence real for every American.

XII. Acknowledge humility. (17:13 to 17:38)

Obama says openly that the work will not be completed, but rather will be imperfect and taken up by subsequent generations. But it must be undertaken now.

XII. State the connection between his efforts and that of ordinary Americans. (17:44 to 18:28)

In addition to making it clear that he is also a citizen in his the opening of his address, Obama described the oath of office he had just taken as very similar to that of an immigrant taking an oath of citizenship-here he appeared to be signaling his commitment to immigration reform-a soldier enlisting in the army, or other Americans pledging allegiance to the flag.

XIV. Close with religion and country. (19:21 to 19:25)

It is a standard element of American political speeches to end by asking God to bless the people in attendance and the country as a whole.

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’A More Perfect Union’ Barack Obama Rhetorical Analysis

“A More Perfect Union” was a speech by then-Senator Barack Obama in 2008. In his most famous speech, Obama elicited debates among many people. It addressed the issue of race in the United States, aiming to rethink divisions within the country. Obama’s speech is criticized for having rhetorical statements and sensitive topics that no one would dare to talk about back then. This essay provides an argumentative rhetorical analysis of Barack Obama’s speech – “A More Perfect Union.”

• The Audience
• Rhetorical Fallacies

Works Cited

Barack obama’s target audience.

In his speech, Obama is very conscious and aware of his audience. His primary target audience is the American population and especially the voters. After addressing the entire American population, he goes further and splits his audience into different groups.

The second group that he addresses is the White Americans. In his speech, he lets them know that there are racial wounds that continued to affect them and many generations. Obama cautiously addresses the challenge of racial discrimination, making sure he does not cause more pain or divide people further through race. However, he does not shy away to put his point across and make his stand known.

Thirdly, Obama addresses the black Americans. As a matter of fact, he is aware that people see him as a black American. Therefore, the people are keen to see how he handles the issue of race.

His message for them does not show any favoritism of race. He notes that, ‘a similar anger exists within the segments of the white community’ (Obama Par. 35). While addressing them, he explains at length that there existed a general feeling among the white when the blacks got better services. The feeling was that of paying for mistakes they did not commit.

Obama shows his wealth of knowledge on the issue that affects people of America. He selects his words carefully while addressing racism that has for many decades affected American people He crafts his speech to be convincing and instead of the issue of race eliciting pain, this time it soothes. The audience is rather calm and does not elicit any aggressive emotions. This is a clear demonstration that he knew his audience well and their needs.

Obama then makes his point clear, aiming to give a solution to the challenges faced by the people of America. He cautions the American people from thinking that forgetting about racism would solved the problem.

The message contained in his speech is that of peace and unity. He wants them to learn to live with one another and appreciate differences in race. Obama ensures that he has addressed the two groups equally so that he unites them together as one people and one audience. He further discusses at length the importance for Americans to speak in one voice and work together in unity.

Rhetorical Fallacies in A More Perfect Union Speech

In his speech, ‘A More perfect Union’ Obama’s opening statements reveals the purpose the speech intended to meet. Obama obtains his first statement from the United States Constitution, ‘We the people, in order to create a perfect union’ (Obama par. 1.). These words reframe and capture the rationale of the Constitution.

Obama employs three rhetoric strategies in his speech. His speech rest upon: emotional, ethical and logical fallacies. He identifies himself with his audience persuasion. The famous quotes he derives from the constitution, makes even those who do not know the constitution, feel the importance of messages communicated (Stoner & Perkins 93).

His audience is aware of racism and Obama speaks of what has generally been unspoken. He achieves his philosophies by speaking facts, about his biological, intellectual and cultural life. The senator speaks about his background and does not deny his race; however, he does not bring it up in the speech (Ifill 54). Burke notes that, Senator Obama accomplishes his speech through, body language, variation of tones and gestures (78).

In his speech, Obama criticizes Americans’ old stain of slavery. He praises the constitution though uncompleted and assures his audience that the solutions to their problems were in the constitution. According to the senator, the constitution has stains due to nation’s original sin of slavery (Obama par.3), ‘…and the underlying roots of inequality and division in America’ (3).

Obama feels that the constitution provided ‘the answer to the slavery question… ‘a Constitution that promised people liberty and justice a lie that he says has been perfected over time’(4). He continues to add that the promises made on the paper were unaccomplished. Towards the end of his speech, Obama tells a story about Ashley. ‘ I am here because of Ashley’ (59). He uses this compelling and appealing approach of a moving and memorable story to seek sympathy from the voters.

Obama also uses repetition as a rhetoric approach to persuade his supporters. In his speech Paragraph 45, he pleads with his audience not to accept to be divided along their areas of weakness. In his entire speech, there is a constant repetition of the word race. In paragraph 26, he identifies race as a problem in the American society.

He says ‘But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now (Obama para. 26). In paragraph 45, he believes that the nation could deal with race by assuring his listeners and saying ‘We can tackle race only as spectacle (45). Other preceding paragraphs also explain the evils caused by racism. This, he uses to express his disapproval of racism in America and encourages people to live and work together to solve challenges created by racism

Obama uses various strategies to connect with the targeted audience. His persuasive appeal proves he is a successful writer and a speaker. His unquestionable ability to move and convince his audience using compelling and sufficient evidence like the constitution, his pastor and his family leaves one fully convinced.

Obama expresses a sense of disappointment over what he calls the ‘unfinished’ document. Actually, he uses a tone of deep disappointments to disapprove slavery (Obama Para. 6.). In fact, an ironical tone is felt when he says slave trade continued for decades and the burden left for to the generation to come. Therefore, his ability to pass his intended information using the application of different stylistic devices is achieved.

Obama changes his tone and uses direct tone. He says..‘I believe deeply we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve the together’ (Obama para. 6.) There is directness in his speech, which continues with to the end, he makes unity a constant remainder in the rest of the speech.

In his speech, Obama sets to give assurance and hope to his supporters. He uses encouraging words like ‘we can do that’ (46), ‘We can tackle race only as spectacle….’ (45) and ‘we can come together and say, “Not this time.”’ (48). By the end of the speech, it is clear where he derives his campaign slogan ‘Yes we can’ and what it meant to all Americans.

This extensive argumentative analysis has revealed that Obama used different rhetorical elements to talk cautiously about a topic on race that many would not dare to discuss. As a matter of fact, Obama’s ability to give a complex and a convincing speech is evident. From the analysis, we can conclude that, Obama is a successful writer and speaker who knew his audience needs. He employed the use of different figures in speech and stylistic devices to pass sound messages to people without any incidents.

Burke, Kenneth. (1966). Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method . Berkeley: University of California Press. Print.

Ifill, Gwen. (2009). The breakthrough: Politics and race in the age of Obama . New York: Doubleday. Print.

Obama, Barack. (2010). Transcript of Obama speech . Web.

Stoner, Mark. & Perkins, Sally. (2005). Making Sense of Messages: A Critical Apprenticeship in Rhetorical Criticism . Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Print.

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IvyPanda . 2023. "’A More Perfect Union’ Barack Obama Rhetorical Analysis." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-rhetoric-analysis-of-barack-obamas-speech-the-perfect-union/.

1. IvyPanda . "’A More Perfect Union’ Barack Obama Rhetorical Analysis." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-rhetoric-analysis-of-barack-obamas-speech-the-perfect-union/.

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An analysis of George W. Bush's speech to Congress on 9/11

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Why It Worked: A Rhetorical Analysis of Obama’s Speech on Race

CORRECTION APPENDED BELOW

More than a century ago, scholar and journalist W.E.B. DuBois wrote a single paragraph about how race is experienced in America. I have learned more from those 112 words than from most book-length studies of the subject:

Much has been said about the power and brilliance of Barack Obama’s March 18 speech on race, even by some of his detractors. The focus has been on the orator’s willingness to say things in public about race that are rarely spoken at all, even in private, and his expressed desire to move the country to a new and better place. There has also been attention to the immediate purpose of the speech, which was to reassure white voters that they had nothing to fear from the congregant of a fiery African-American pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. 

Amid all the commentary, I have yet to see an X-Ray reading of the text that would make visible the rhetorical strategies that the orator and authors used so effectively. When received in the ear, these effects breeze through us like a harmonious song. When inspected with the eye, these moves become more apparent, like reading a piece of sheet music for a difficult song and finally recognizing the chord changes.

Such analysis, while interesting in itself, might be little more than a scholarly curiosity if we were not so concerned with the language issues of political discourse. The popular opinion is that our current president, though plain spoken, is clumsy with language. Fair or not, this perception has produced a hope that our next president will be a more powerful communicator, a Kennedy or Reagan, perhaps, who can use language less as a way to signal ideology and more as a means to bring the disparate parts of the nation together. Journalists need to pay closer attention to political language than ever before.

Like most memorable pieces of oratory, Obama’s speech sounds better than it reads. We have no way of knowing if that was true of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but it is certainly true of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. If you doubt this assertion, test it out. Read the speech and then experience it in its original setting recited by his soulful voice.

The effectiveness of Obama’s speech rests upon four related rhetorical strategies:

Allusion Part of what made Dr. King’s speech resonate, not just for black people, but for some whites, was its framing of racial equality in familiar patriotic terms: “This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, ‘My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty of thee I sing.  Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.'”  What follows, of course, is King’s great litany of iconic topography that carries listeners across the American landscape: “Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!…”

In this tradition, Obama begins with “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union,” a quote from the Constitution that becomes a recurring refrain linking the parts of the speech. What comes next is “Two hundred and twenty one years ago,” an opening that places him in the tradition of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Dr. King at the Lincoln Memorial: “Five score years ago.”

On the first page, Obama mentions the words democracy, Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia convention, 1787, the colonies, the founders, the Constitution, liberty, justice, citizenship under the law, parchment, equal, free, prosperous, and the presidency. It is not as well known as it should be that many black leaders, including Dr. King, use two different modes of discourse when addressing white vs. black audiences, an ignorance that has led to some of the hysteria over some of Rev. Wright’s comments.

Obama’s patriotic lexicon is meant to comfort white ears and soothe white fears. What keeps the speech from falling into a pandering sea of slogans is language that reveals, not the ideals, but the failures of the American experiment: “It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.” And “what would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part … to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.”

Lest a dark vision of America disillusion potential voters, Obama returns to familiar evocations of national history, ideals, and language:

–“Out of many, we are truly one.” –“survived a Depression.” –“a man who served his country” –“on a path of a more perfect union” –“a full measure of justice” –“the immigrant trying to feed his family” –“where our union grows stronger” –“a band of patriots signed that document.”

Parallelism At the risk of calling to mind the worst memories of grammar class, I invoke the wisdom that parallel constructions help authors and orators make meaning memorable. To remember how parallelism works, think of equal terms to express equal ideas. So Dr. King dreamed that one day his four children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” ( By the content of their character is parallel to by the color of their skin .)

Back to Obama: “This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign — to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.” If you are counting, that’s five parallel phrases among 43 words. 

And there are many more:

Two-ness I could argue that Obama’s speech is a meditation upon DuBois’ theory of a dual experience of race in America. There is no mention of DuBois or two-ness, but it is all there in the texture. In fact, once you begin the search, it is remarkable how many examples of two-ness shine through:

–“through protests and struggles” –“on the streets and in the courts” –“through civil war and civil disobedience” –“I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.” –“white and black” –“black and brown” –“best schools … poorest nations” –“too black or not black enough” –“the doctor and the welfare mom” –“the model student and the former gang-banger …” –“raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor” –“political correctness or reverse racism” –“your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams”

Such language manages to create both tension and balance and, without being excessively messianic, permits Obama to present himself as the bridge builder, the reconciler of America’s racial divide. Autobiography There is an obnoxious tendency among political candidates to frame their life story as a struggle against poverty or hard circumstances. As satirist Stephen Colbert once noted of presidential candidates, it is not enough to be an average millionaire. To appeal to populist instincts it becomes de rigueur to be descended from “goat turd farmers” in France.

Without dwelling on it, Obama reminds us that his father was black and his mother white, that he came from Kenya, but she came from Kansas: “I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slave and slave owners — an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles, and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.”

The word “story” is revealing one, for it is always the candidate’s job (as both responsibility and ploy) to describe himself or herself as a character in a story of his or her own making. In speeches, as in homilies, stories almost always carry the weight of parable, with moral lessons to be drawn.

Most memorable, of course, is the story at the end of the speech — which is why it appears at the end. It is the story of Ashley Baia, a young, white, Obama volunteer from South Carolina, whose family was so poor she convinced her mother that her favorite meal was a mustard and relish sandwich. 

“Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue.  And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. … He simply says to everyone in the room, ‘I am here because of Ashley.'”

During most of the 20th century, demagogues, especially in the South, gained political traction by pitting working class whites and blacks against each other. How fitting, then, that Obama’s story points in the opposite direction through an old black man who feels a young white woman’s pain.  

CORRECTION : An earlier version of this post incorrectly attributed the phrase, “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union” to the Declaration of Independence.

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My Favorite Speeches for Rhetorical Analysis: 10 Speeches for Middle School ELA and High School English

Teaching rhetorical analysis is one of my absolute favorite units to complete with my students. I love teaching my students about rhetorical strategies and devices, analyzing what makes an effective and persuasive argument, and reading critical speeches with my students. Here is a quick list of some of my favorite speeches for rhetorical analysis.

I absolutely LOVE teaching rhetorical analysis. I think it might be one of my favorite units to teach to my high school students. There are just so many different text options to choose from. Here is a list of some of my favorite speeches to include in my rhetorical analysis teaching unit.

10 Speeches for Teaching Rhetorical Analysis

1. the gettysburg address (abraham lincoln).

Some notable things to mention in this speech include allusion and parallel structure. To make your analysis more meaningful, point out these devices to students and explain how these devices enhance the meaning of the text.

Teaching Resource : The Gettysburg Address Rhetorical Analysis Activity Packet

2. Lou Gehrig’s Farewell Speech (Lou Gehrig)

This speech is one that many of my athletes love to analyze, and it is an excellent exemplar text to teach pathos. And like The Gettysburg Address, it is short. This is another speech that you can read, analyze, and even write about in one class period.

When I use this speech in my class, I have students look for examples of pathos. Mainly, I have them look at word choice, tone, and mood. How does Lou Gehrig’s choice of words affect his tone and the overall mood of the speech?

3. I Have a Dream (Martin Luther King,  Jr.)

In the classroom, it is important to point out the sermonic feel to the speech and also to have your students look for calls to action and pathos. Have your students look for tone, allusions, and word choice to help them notice these rhetoric expressions throughout it.

Teaching Resource : I Have a Dream Close Read and Rhetorical Analysis

4. Speech at the March on Washington (Josephine Baker)

This is another important speech that held a lot of importance for the changes that needed to be made in America. The speech is a shorter one, so in the classroom, it will not take as long to analyze it, and students can understand the significance of the use of rhetoric in a shorter amount of time than some other speeches.

When teaching this speech, I like to remind my students to search for devices that portray an excellent example of the pathos that is so present in this speech. Some of these devices could be mood, repetition, and diction.

5. Steve Jobs’ Commencement Speech (Steve Jobs)

In class, it is good to have your students annotate and analyze the speech just as they have done for the others. The organization of the speech will help them to notice the similarities and differences between each point Jobs makes.

6. Space Shuttle Challenger (Ronald Reagan)

This speech represents a strong sense of pathos as a movement to help the American people cope with loss after the deaths of the astronauts aboard the Challenger. It is another speech that is not too long, so it should not take a long time to both analyze and annotate the entire speech.

When teaching this speech in class, be sure to mention how pathos is the driving force behind the speech, through the tone and the diction. How does Reagan use emotion to focus on the astronauts as humans, rather than solely focusing on the tragedy?

7. The Perils of Indifference (Elie Wiesel)

This speech is a good one to teach because it both makes students question their own lives, but also how the world works. The speech relies on pathos, and a little ethos too, to get the audience to feel the full effect of the tragedy of the Holocaust and what the speaker went through. It is a long speech so it may take longer for the students to fully grasp all the details that make it such a persuasive speech.

When I teach this speech, I like to have students annotate every place they notice an example of pathos, and then have them explain why in their annotations this makes them feel an emotion. The same with the ethos, and then we can further analyze the rest together.

8. 9/11 Address to the Nation (George W. Bush)

This speech shows another example of the use of pathos in the midst of a tragedy. The President wanted to show the American people how much he was feeling for those lost in the tragedy of 9/11. It is not a long speech, but the amount of emotion within the words is significant for students to notice.

When teaching this speech, it is essential that students look very closely at each part of it, noticing each piece that reveals tone, mood, and other literary devices. How do the different devices add to the pathos of the speech?

FREE TEACHING ACTIVITY : September 11 Address to the Nation Sampler

Teaching Resource : September 11 Address to the Nation Rhetorical Analysis Unit

9. We are Virginia Tech (Nikki Giovanni)

This speech is probably the shortest speech on this list but provides one of the most emotional and pathos-filled rhetoric. This describes another tragedy that is spoken about with pathos to give the audience a safe feeling after such an emotional thing. Students can spend time analyzing the different devices that make the piece so strong in its emotion.

In the classroom, make sure your students make a note of the repetition, and what that does for the speech. Does it make the emotion more impactful? How does it make the audience feel like they are a part of something bigger?

10. Woman’s Right to the Suffrage (Susan B. Anthony)

This is another short speech that holds a lot of power within it. A lot of students will enjoy reading this to see how much the country has changed, and how this speech may have some part in influencing this change. It is a great speech to help teach logos in the classroom, and it will not take a long time to analyze.

Make sure your students notice, and they also understand, the use of allusions within the speech. These allusions help to establish the use of logos, as Anthony wants the use of American historical documents to show how logical her argument is.

Ready-For-You Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Unit

You might also be interested in my blog post about 15 rhetorical analysis questions to ask your students.

Teaching rhetorical analysis and speeches in the classroom is a great way to teach informational text reading standards.

Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Resources:

These resources follow reading standards for informational text and are ideal for secondary ELA teachers.

• Rhetorical Analysis Unit with Sticky Notes
• Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Understanding Rhetorical Appeals\
• Rhetorical Analysis Mini Flip Book

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AP ® Lang teachers: looking to help your students improve their rhetorical analysis essays?

Coach Hall Writes

clear, concise rhetorical analysis instruction.

George Bush 9/11 Speech Rhetorical Analysis

September 7, 2022 by Beth Hall

One of the reasons I like to have students do a George Bush 9/11 speech rhetorical analysis that is relatively short and very approachable, especially at the beginning of the year, making it a great text for high school English classes.

The Rhetorical Situation

Personally, I like to do a pre-reading exercise in which we discuss the rhetorical situation of the text.  Here are some questions I ask:

• Speaker: When was George Bush president?
• Purpose: Knowing that he addressed the nation on the evening of September 11, 2001, what do you think was the likely purpose of the speech?
• Audience: What were the American public’s needs, beliefs, or values at this time?
• Context: Why was the 2000 election controversial?
• Exigence: What happened on September 11th?

For more detailed September 11th lesson plans, check out this George Bush 9/11 Speech Rhetorical Analysis mini unit here . Or, for more detailed lessons, check out my 9-week rhetorical analysis unit , which includes activities for George Bush’s 9/11 speech and the speech he gave on the 20-year anniversary of 9/11.

Listen to the Speech

While reading the speech in class has its benefits, hearing the speech can help students better understand the tone.

There are multiple videos available online. Click here for a video of the speech.

Annotations

Depending on your students’ understanding of rhetorical analysis, you might have them annotate the speech.

I like to have students do “what/why” annotations, especially at the beginning of the year. Click here for teacher instructions about how to setup “what/why’ annotations.

“Silent annotations” can be great especially for the beginning of the year as students are getting to know each other and are learning rhetorical analysis skills.

• Divide students into groups. Each group needs a copy of the speech pasted or taped to a larger piece of paper or poster board. Each student should have a different color pen.
• Have students read the speech and write 1-3 initial observations or annotations.
• Then, have students respond to group member’s annotations to start a “silent conversation.”

Thesis Statement

Another great low-prep beginning-of-the-year activity is having students write a defensible thesis. While writing 1-2 sentences might seem simple, this is a great opportunity to have students practice including rhetorically accurate verbs and identifying a specific message or purpose.

Here is a sample Bush 9/11 Rhetorical Analysis Speech Prompt:

Analyze how President George W. Bush makes rhetorical choices to achieve his purpose OR Analyze how President George W. Bush makes rhetorical choices in order to reassure the stunned and grieving American public.

And here are two thesis statement sentence frames students can use:

In his TONE speech to AUDIENCE, President Bush CHOICE 1 and CHOICE 2 in order to PURPOSE.

In his TONE address to the nation following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush CHOICE 1 and CHOICE 2, ultimately causing the American public to PURPOSE.

• Students can modify the sentence frames above as needed. The goal is to include specifics about the tone, audience, rhetorical choices, and purpose.

Bush’s 20-Year Anniversary of 9/11 Speech

For additional rhetorical analysis practice, consider having students read the speech George Bush gave in 2022 on the 20-year anniversary of 9/11.

Here’s a sample prompt:

On September 11, 2001, United Airlines flight 93 crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the hijackers. Twenty years later, on September 11, 2021, former president George W. Bush (who was president in 2001) gave a keynote address in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. After reading the speech, write a well-developed essay in which you analyze how George W. Bush makes rhetorical choices to convey his message about America’s unity and strength after 9/11.

In addition to having students analyze the speech, you might ask them to compare the style of the two speeches.

For extra writing practice, have the students practice writing a thesis and topic sentence for subsequent body paragraphs. This activity is a simple way to reinforce the concept of writing claims and creating a line of reasoning.

“Boatlift”

The “Boatlift” documentary is relatively short (approximately 11 minutes,) which means that students can watch and discuss (or write about) the documentary within a class period.

This documentary can be shown before or after reading George Bush’s 9/11 speech.

In “Boatlift” Tom Hanks narrates the heroic story of the “9/11 boatlift” which resulted in the evacuation of half a million people from Lower Manhattan following the collapse of the Twin Towers.

Rhetorical Analysis of “Boatlift”

To continue to build rhetorical analysis skills, have students analyze the choices the film producers made when constructing the film. These choices could include interviews, photos/videos, narration, etc.

Argument Practice with “Boatlift”

At the start of the documentary, there is the following quote by Romain Rolland: “A hero is a man who does what he can.”

Have students write a well-developed paragraph in which they use evidence from the documentary to support this claim.

Teachers, want done-for-you lessons? Be sure to check out my 9-week rhetorical analysis unit which contains both speeches mentioned above (printable and digital lessons.)

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Deconstructing the spectacle and stagecraft of a Donald Trump rally

Https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/assets/usa-election-trump-rally/trump-loop.mp4.

Campaign rallies are a defining feature of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s third run for the White House: all-day spectacles blending evangelical revivalist meeting and carnival, designed to deliver an emotional experience to his base. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By TIM REID and NATHAN LAYNE

Filed April 20, 2024, 10 a.m. GMT

By the time Donald Trump took to the stage for his rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, some of his most ardent supporters had spent the night in their cars amid frigid temperatures to see the man they hope to once again elect as president.

As Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” pumped from the speakers inside the convention center, the Republican former president-turned-candidate waved, swayed, clapped and blew kisses.

“Trump, Trump, Trump,” some in the crowd of 3,200 people chanted. A young couple held their baby aloft. A few people got teary.

Trump’s rallies are a defining feature of his presidential campaigns: all-day spectacles blending evangelical revivalist meeting and carnival, designed to deliver an emotional experience to his base and bring new backers into the fold, a campaign aide said.

In Trump’s third presidential campaign, a general election rematch against Democratic President Joe Biden on Nov. 5, the meticulously planned marathons have re-emerged as a central part of Trump’s bid to re-enter the White House.

The former reality TV star is involved in the “look, feel and tone” of the rallies including the music, selected from the personal playlist that Trump listens to during down time at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate, said Justin Caporale, deputy campaign manager for operations.

“We are essentially producing rock concerts inside of a week, and we’re doing it multiple times a month,” Caporale said.

Trump has held 21 campaign rallies so far in 2024, including 11 in Iowa and New Hampshire during the Republican nominating race, according to Election Central, a non-partisan group that tracks public appearances by presidential candidates.

That compares to 13 by mid-April in 2020, when he was president, according to a Reuters analysis.

“We are essentially producing rock concerts inside of a week, and we’re doing it multiple times a month.” Justin Caporale, deputy campaign manager for operations

Biden’s re-election campaign has largely bypassed big rallies for smaller meetings with voters at venues such as churches and union halls.

Trump’s rally schedule this cycle has had to compete with his court appearances on criminal and civil charges. He spent this past week in a New York courtroom for the start of his hush money criminal trial, before heading to swing state North Carolina for a rally on Saturday.

Reuters attended Trump’s Green Bay rally on April 2 and interviewed four dozen attendees who collectively liked going to the rallies, they said, because it felt like a community and they didn’t have to worry about being politically correct. They said they came because they love Trump and his rallies are fun.

The news agency also spoke to two campaign officials, including Caporale, who described the strategy and stagecraft that go into creating an experience designed to excite the base and imbue a sense of belonging that bonds supporters to Trump and his populist message, with the aim of propelling him to a second term.

“These are people that are activists in our movement. They want the same thing we want – to get President Trump elected for the next four years,” said Brian Hughes, a senior campaign adviser.

Sharon Anderson, 68, drove five hours from her home in Tennessee to Indiana to meet up with fellow Trump supporter Mike Boatman before the two drove another eight hours to Wisconsin.

They slept in their rental car outside the convention center to ensure they would be at the front of the line.

Anderson and Boatman are part of a group that calls itself the “Front Row Joes,” about 50 Trump supporters by their count, who they said take turns to be first in line for every Trump rally.

This was Boatman’s 85th rally and Anderson’s 51st. In North Carolina in March 2020, Trump’s son Eric pulled Anderson on stage so she could tell the crowd of 20,000 why she loved the then-president.

“This is like family,” Anderson, a retired high school attendance clerk, said before the Green Bay rally. “You make new friends from all over the country. At every Trump rally you leave with hope for our future.”

As supporters waited for the doors to open, Duane Schwingel, 65, a Trump superfan wearing Uncle Sam regalia and carrying a microphone and boom box, sang songs extolling Trump and decrying socialists.

Wisconsin resident Vicki Lou Hanegraaf, 62, who was attending her first rally, said she expected the emotions she felt watching Trump walk across the White House lawn as president to swell up again. “Trump is a truth slayer,” she said. “He’s anointed with absolute truth, like gravity.”

The Trump campaign uses the rallies to collect and analyze attendee data, in the hope of turning it into votes. People register with the campaign, providing email, cell phone number, zip code and state, in return for a text message which serves as a ticket.

After the rally, attendees are flooded with text messages, including fundraising appeals from Trump.

The rallies are also aimed at attracting free local and national media coverage, recruiting volunteers and getting local politicians and leaders to amplify Trump’s message, Hughes said.

As the campaign heats up, an increasing number of Trump’s rallies will be held in election battleground states like Wisconsin, Hughes said. Trump narrowly won Wisconsin in 2016, then narrowly lost it to Biden in 2020.

The Green Bay event had been weeks in the making.

Trump’s advance team coordinated with the Secret Service and local law enforcement agencies to secure the convention center.

They spent days working out parking for supporters, food trucks, access to restrooms, water, merchandise and entertainment.

Local contractors and volunteers helped decorate the stage with giant screens, red carpet and American flags.

As supporters streamed inside, campaign volunteers handed out “Make America Great Again” and “Fire Biden” signs.

Trump’s musical choices played over the loudspeakers: Elvis Presley’s “Suspicious Minds,” Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Great Balls of Fire,” The Who’s “Pinball Wizard,” along with some Johnny Cash and “The Music of the Night” from The Phantom of the Opera.

Caporale said the Trump campaign has worked hard to refine and improve “an incredible and unique guest experience.”

After each rally, Trump’s team holds a post-mortem to discuss what worked and what should be improved for the next event.

Some of the stunts this year have been audacious.

As Trump’s Boeing 757 private jet came in to land for a rally at the Dayton International Airport in Ohio on March 16, a voice announced: “Trump Force One, you are cleared for landing.”

The theme music from the “Top Gun” movies struck up. The crowd went wild.

While the stagecraft is designed to entertain the crowd, it also reinforces Trump’s message that the country has gone to “hell” and that he along with his supporters must fix it.

About two hours before Trump appeared on stage in Green Bay, speakers began whipping up the audience.

Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, repeated the baseless conspiracy that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Tom Tiffany, a Wisconsin congressman, said Biden had given the country a “VIP program for illegal aliens, and you are the second-class citizens in America now, aren’t you?”

The event also struck a religious tone. During the invocation, Casey Carey, the pastor at CrossPoint Church in DePere, Wisconsin, said: “I ask you Father to bless President Donald Trump.”

The crowd yelled “Amen!”

Trump began the speech suggesting he, not Biden, won Wisconsin in 2020 and repeated in his address the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

As the speech gathered in fury about the sorry state of America and the dark forces arrayed against Trump, it began to mimic a religious call-and-response session between a pastor and congregation.

He directed his harshest rhetoric towards immigrants in the country illegally from nations including Venezuela, the Congo, Somalia and Syria.

The crowd chanted: “Build the wall!”

He promised to carry out the “largest deportation in American history.”

The crowd roared.

Jennifer Mercieca, a Texas A&M University professor who has written a book on Trump’s rhetoric, said the exchanges represented mutual pledges of loyalty and protection: the crowd willing to suffer for Trump because they believe he suffers for them, and staying loyal to Trump because he is loyal to them.

“It’s a potent combination,” she said, in terms of reaffirming the connection.

The Green Bay speech ran just about an hour, shorter than usual because Trump needed to fly out before being snowed in.

Trump stayed away from some of the more incendiary language he’s used at previous rallies.

He was at times funny. But the bulk of his speech featured dystopian language, with Trump painting a picture of an America locked in a battle of good versus evil.

“2024 is our final battle,” Trump said as the speech was winding up. “With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state, we will expel the warmongers, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.”

Then he exited the stage to a Sam & Dave song – an R&B classic that is a new entrant to the Trump rally playlist.

The title: “Hold On, I’m Comin’.”

By Tim Reid and Nathan Layne

Photo editing: Corinne Perkins

Art direction: John Emerson

Edited by Colleen Jenkins and Suzanne Goldenberg

Other Reuters investigations

Justices Seem Ready to Limit the 2020 Election Case Against Trump

Such a ruling in the case, on whether the former president is immune from prosecution, would probably send it back to a lower court and could delay any trial until after the November election.

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Charlie Savage and Alan Feuer

Charlie Savage reported from Washington, and Alan Feuer from New York.

Here are four takeaways from the Supreme Court hearing on Trump’s claim to immunity.

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Thursday about Donald J. Trump’s claim that the federal charges accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election must be thrown out because he is immune from being prosecuted for any official act he took as president.

Here are some takeaways.

Several justices seemed to want to define some level of official act as immune.

Although Mr. Trump’s claim of near-absolute immunity was seen as a long shot intended primarily to slow the proceedings, several members of the Republican-appointed majority seemed to indicate that some immunity was needed. Some of them expressed worry about the long-term consequences of leaving future former presidents open to prosecution for their official actions.

Among others, Justice Brett Kavanaugh compared the threat of prosecution for official acts to how a series of presidents were “hampered” by independent counsel investigations, criticizing a 1984 ruling that upheld a now-defunct law creating such prosecutors as one of the Supreme Court’s biggest mistakes. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. criticized an appeals court ruling rejecting immunity for Mr. Trump, saying he was concerned that it “did not get into a focused consideration of what acts we are talking about or what documents are talking about.”

“It’s a serious constitutional question whether a statute can be applied to the president’s official acts. So wouldn’t you always interpret the statute not to apply to the president, even under your formulation, unless Congress had spoken with some clarity?” “I don’t think across the board that as serious constitutional question exists on applying any criminal statute to the president.” “The problem is the vague statute — obstruction and 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States can be used against a lot of presidential activities historically with a creative prosecutor who wants to go after a president.” “I think that the question about the risk is very serious. And obviously it is a question that this court has to evaluate. For the executive branch, our view is that there is a balanced protection that better serves the interests of the Constitution that incorporates both accountability and protection for the president.”

The Democrat-appointed justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — asked questions indicating greater concern about opening the door for presidents to commit official crimes with impunity.

“This is what you’re asking us to say, which is that a president is entitled not to make a mistake — but more than that, a president is entitled for total personal gain to use the trappings of his office. That’s what you’re trying to get us to hold — without facing criminal liability.” “Your honor, I would say three things in response to that. First, the doctrine that immunity does not turn on the allegedly improper motivation or purpose is something that this court has reaffirmed in at least nine or 10 —” “That’s absolute immunity. But qualified immunity does say that whatever act you take has to be within what a reasonable person would do. I’m having a hard time thinking that creating false documents, that submitting false documents, that ordering the assassination of a rival, that accepting a bribe, and countless other laws that could be broken for personal gain, that anyone would say that it would be reasonable for a president or any public official to do that.”

The arguments signaled further delay and complications for a Trump trial.

If the Supreme Court does place limits on the ability of prosecutors to charge Mr. Trump over his official actions, it could alter the shape of his trial.

A decision to send all or part of the case back to the lower courts could further slow progress toward a trial, increasing the odds that it does not start before Election Day.

Of the matters listed in the indictment, some — like working with private lawyers to gin up slates of fraudulent electors — seem like the private actions of a candidate. Others — like pressuring the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence to do things — seem more like official acts he took in his role as president.

At one point, Justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested that prosecutors could simply drop Mr. Trump’s arguably official actions from their case and proceed to a swift trial focused only on his private actions. And D. John Sauer, the lawyer for Mr. Trump, told the court that no evidence of Mr. Trump’s official actions should be allowed into the trial.

But Michael R. Dreeben, a Justice Department lawyer arguing on behalf of the special counsel’s office, said the indictment laid out an “integrated conspiracy” in which Mr. Trump took the official actions to bolster the chances that his other efforts to overturn the election would succeed.

He argued that even if the court holds that Mr. Trump has immunity from liability for his official actions, prosecutors should still be allowed to present evidence about them to the jury because the actions are relevant to assessing his larger knowledge and intentions — just as speech that is protected by the First Amendment can still be used as evidence in a conspiracy case.

The hearing revolved around two very different ways of looking at the issue.

Looming over the hearing was a sweeping moral question: What effect might executive immunity have on the future of American politics?

Not surprisingly, the two sides saw things very differently.

Mr. Sauer claimed that without immunity, all presidents would be paralyzed by the knowledge that once they were out of office, they could face an onslaught of charges from their rivals based on the tough calls they had to make while in power. He pictured a dystopian world of ceaseless tit-for-tat political prosecutions that would destroy the “presidency as we know it.”

If a president can be charged, put on trial and imprisoned for his most controversial decisions as soon as he leaves office, that looming threat will distort the president’s decision-making precisely when bold and fearless action is most needed. Every current president will face de facto blackmail and extortion by his political rivals while he is still in office. The implications of the court’s decision here extend far beyond the facts of this case. Could President George W. Bush have been sent to prison for obstructing an official proceeding or allegedly lying to Congress to induce war in Iraq? Could President Obama be charged with murder for killing U.S. citizens abroad by drone strike? Could President Biden someday be charged with unlawfully inducing immigrants to enter the country illegally for his border policies? The answer to all these questions is no.

Envisioning the opposite scenario, Mr. Dreeben worried that any form of blanket immunity would place presidents entirely outside of the rule of law and encourage them to commit crimes, including “bribery, treason, sedition, even murder,” with impunity.

“The framers knew too well the dangers of a king who could do no wrong,” he said.

This court has never recognized absolute criminal immunity for any public official. Petitioner, however, claims that a former president has permanent criminal immunity for his official acts unless he was first impeached and convicted. His novel theory would immunize former presidents for criminal liability; for bribery, treason, sedition, murder and here, conspiring to use fraud to overturn the results of an election and perpetuate himself in power. Such presidential immunity has no foundation in the Constitution. The framers knew too well the dangers of a king who could do no wrong.

Both sides found advocates for their positions on the court.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. clearly seemed worried that without some form of criminal immunity, former presidents would be vulnerable to partisan warfare as their successors used the courts to go after them once they were out of office. And that, he added, could lead to endless cycles of retribution that would be a risk to “stable, democratic society.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared more concerned that if presidents were in fact shielded by immunity, they would be unbounded by the law and could turn the Oval Office into what she described as “the seat of criminality.”

If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes, I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminal activity in this country? If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate, because O.L.C. has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning. But once we say no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want, I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.

What happens next?

There did not seem to be a lot of urgency among the justices — especially the conservative ones — to ensure that the immunity question was resolved quickly. That left open the possibility that Mr. Trump could avoid being tried on charges of plotting to overturn the last election until well after voters went to the polls to decide whether to choose him as president in this election.

And if he is elected, any trial could be put off while he is in office, or he could order the charges against him dropped.

It could take some time for the court to do its own analysis of what presidential acts should qualify for the protections of immunity. And even if the justices determine that at least some of the allegations against Mr. Trump are fair game for prosecution, if they do not issue a ruling until late June or early July, it could be difficult to hold a trial before November.

That would become all but impossible if the court took a different route and sent the analysis back to the trial judge, Tanya S. Chutkan. If Judge Chutkan were ordered to hold further hearings on which of the indictment’s numerous allegations were official acts of Mr. Trump’s presidency and which were private acts he took as a candidate for office, the process could take months and last well into 2025.

Aishvarya Kavi

Reporting from Washington

A spectacle outside the Supreme Court for Trump’s defenders and detractors.

Just as the Supreme Court began considering on Thursday morning whether former President Donald J. Trump was entitled to absolute immunity, rap music started blaring outside the court.

The lyrics, laced with expletives, denounced Mr. Trump, and several dozen demonstrators began chanting, “Trump is not above the law!”

Mr. Trump was not in Washington on Thursday morning — in fact, he was in another courtroom , in New York. But the spectacle that pierced the relative tranquillity outside the court was typical of events that involve him: demonstrations, homemade signs, police, news media, and lots and lots of curious onlookers.

One man, Stephen Parlato, a retired mental health counselor from Boulder, Colo., held a roughly 6-foot-long sign with a blown-up photo of Mr. Trump scowling that read, “Toxic loser.” The back of the sign featured the famous painting by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge of dogs playing poker, adorned with the words, “Faith erodes … in a court with no binding ethics code.” He made the sign at FedEx, he said.

The Supreme Court’s decision to even hear the case, which has delayed Mr. Trump’s election interference trial , was “absurd,” he said.

“I’m a child of the late ’60s and early ’70s and the Vietnam War,” said Mr. Parlato, dressed in a leather jacket and cowboy hat. “I remember protesting that while in high school. But this is very different. I’m here because I’m terrified of the possibility of a second Trump presidency.”

Inside the court, Jack Smith sat to the far right of the lawyer arguing on behalf of his team of prosecutors, Michael R. Dreeben, a leading expert in criminal law who has worked for another special counsel who investigated Mr. Trump, Robert S. Mueller III.

Among those in attendance were Jane Sullivan Roberts, who is married to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, who is married to Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

In an orderly line outside along the side of the court, people were calmly waiting to listen to the arguments from the court’s public gallery. More than 100 people, many of them supporters of Mr. Trump, were in line as of 8:30 a.m. Reagan Pendarvis, 19, who had been waiting there since the middle of the night, said the first person in line had gotten there more than a day before the arguments began.

Mr. Pendarvis, a sophomore at the University of California, San Diego who is living in Washington for the spring semester, was wearing a black suit and bright red bow tie. He said he had been struggling to keep warm since he took his place in line.

Mr. Pendarvis, a supporter of Mr. Trump, said he thought that the cases brought against the former president were an uneven application of the law.

“I think a lot of the cases, especially that happen for Donald Trump, don’t really happen for Democrats on the other side,” he said. “That’s just my take on it.”

David Bolls, 42, and his brother, Jonathan, 43, both of Springfield, Va., also in line for the arguments, also contended that the prosecutions against Mr. Trump were an abuse of judicial power.

“For me, I want to see an even application of justice,” David Bolls said.

For others in line, the Supreme Court’s deliberations were not the main draw. Ellen Murphy, a longtime Washington resident, was trying to sell buttons she designs, though she acknowledged that it was unlikely she would be allowed in with all of her merchandise.

Dozens of the buttons, which said, “Immunize democracy now” and “Trump is toast” over a toaster with two slices of bread, were pinned to a green apron she was wearing.

“We lose our democracy,” Ms. Murphy said, “if the president can do whatever he wants just because he’s president.”

Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.

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Adam Liptak

What’s next: Much will turn on how quickly the court acts.

The justices heard arguments in the immunity case at a special session, the day after what had been the last scheduled argument of its term. Arguments heard in late April almost always yield decisions near the end of the court’s term, in late June or early July.

But a ruling in early summer, even if it categorically rejected Mr. Trump’s position, would make it hard to complete his trial before the election. Should Mr. Trump win at the polls, there is every reason to think he would scuttle the prosecution.

In cases that directly affected elections — in which the mechanisms of voting were at issue — the court has sometimes acted with unusual speed.

In 2000, in Bush v. Gore, the court issued its decision handing the presidency to George W. Bush the day after the justices heard arguments.

In a recent case concerning Mr. Trump’s eligibility to appear on Colorado’s primary ballot, the justices moved more slowly, but still at a relatively brisk pace. The court granted Mr. Trump’s petition seeking review just two days after he filed it , scheduled arguments for about a month later and issued its decision in his favor about a month after that.

In United States v. Nixon, the 1974 decision that ordered President Richard M. Nixon to comply with a subpoena for audiotapes of conversations with aides in the White House, the court also moved quickly , granting the special prosecutor’s request to bypass the appeals court a week after it was filed.

The court heard arguments about five weeks later — compared with some eight weeks in Mr. Trump’s immunity case. It issued its decision 16 days after the argument , and the trial was not delayed.

Abbie VanSickle

The oral argument lasted nearly three hours, as the justices tangled with a lawyer for the former president and a Justice Department lawyer. A majority of the justices appeared skeptical of the idea of sweeping presidential immunity. However, several of them suggested an interest in drawing out what actions may be immune and what may not — a move that could delay the former president’s trial if the Supreme Court asks a lower court to revisit the issues.

Many of the justices seemed to be considering the idea that presidents should enjoy some form of protection against criminal prosecution. The devil, however, will be in the details: How should that protection extend?

And that question will have profound relevance not only for future presidents, but much more immediately for Donald Trump. The court could decide to draw those rules itself in a broad way for history. Or it could send this case back to a lower court to set the rules of what form immunity could take. If the case is sent back for further proceedings, it could have a dramatic effect on the timing of Trump’s trial, pushing it well past the election in November.

Looking back, one of the main points of discussion turned on the question of which situation would be worse: a world in which presidents, shorn of any legal protections against prosecution, were ceaselessly pursued in the courts by their rivals in a never-ending cycle of political retribution, or allowing presidents to be unbounded by criminal law and permitted to do whatever they wanted with impunity.

Charlie Savage

Sauer, Trump’s attorney, declines to offer a rebuttal. The argument is over.

If the court finds that there is some immunity for official actions, one of the most important questions will be whether prosecutors can still present evidence to the jury of Trump’s official actions (like pressuring the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence to do certain things) as evidence that helps illuminate Trump’s knowledge and intent for his private acts as a candidate. Dreeben says the jury needs to understand the whole “integrated conspiracy” but prosecutors would accept a jury instruction in which the judge would say they cannot impose liability for the official actions but may consider them as evidence of his knowledge and intent for the other actions. That’s how courts handle protected speech that is evidence to a larger conspiracy, he notes.

Justice Barrett picks up the question of timing again. She suggests that if prosecutors want to take Trump quickly to trial, they could simply drop those parts of the indictment that seem to be his official acts as president and proceed with only those parts of the indictment that reflect Trump’s private actions taken as a candidate for office. Dreeben is not wild about that idea.

Dreeben suggests that allegations in the “private acts bucket,” as Justice Jackson just called it, would include things like the scheme to create fake electors and the way in which Trump fomented a mob of his supporters to violently attack the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Justice Barrett seems to signal that she is less likely to find that presidents have blanket immunity for their official acts. When Dreeben says the system needs to balance the effective functioning of the presidency and accountability for a former president under the rule of law, and the existing system does that pretty well or maybe needs a few ancillary rules but that is different from the “radical proposal” put forward by Trump’s legal team, she says: “I agree.”

Dreeben, in a balancing act that seems to acknowledge that the court is looking for some form of criminal immunity for presidents, says he is trying to do two things at once, neither of them easy. He wants to design a system to find some rules that preserve the “effective functioning of the presidency” but that still allows for “accountability” if presidents violated the law.

Kavanaugh asks Dreeben about Obama’s drone strike that killed an American citizen suspected of terrorism, Anwar al-Awlaki, which Trump’s lawyer invoked in his opening. Dreeben notes that the Office of Legal Counsel analyzed the question and found that the murder statute did not apply to presidents when they were acting under public authority, so authorizing the strike was lawful. This is the way the system can function, he said — the Justice Department analyzes laws carefully and with established principles.

Justice Kavanaugh signals that he is likely to find that presidents must have immunity for their official actions. He talks about how the threat of prosecution by independent counsels (under a law that lapsed in 1999) hampered Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Clinton, and says a 1984 ruling upholding that structure as constitutional was one of the Supreme Court’s biggest mistakes. (Notably, Kavanaugh was a prosecutor on the staff of independent counsel Ken Starr during his investigation into President Bill Clinton, before becoming a White House lawyer under President George W. Bush.)

Dreeben tries to push back on Kavanaugh’s argument by saying that even after Watergate, even after all of the independent counsel investigations mentioned above, the legal system has survived without “having gone off on a runaway train” of actual criminal prosecutions against former presidents.

The Supreme Court rejected Bill Clinton’s claim of immunity.

In Clinton v. Jones in 1997, the Supreme Court unanimously allowed a sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton to proceed while he was in office, discounting concerns that it would distract him from his official responsibilities. Both of his appointees, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, voted against him.

“The president is subject to judicial process in appropriate circumstances,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the court, adding, “We have never suggested that the president, or any other official, has an immunity that extends beyond the scope of any action taken in an official capacity.”

The case was in one sense harder than the one against Mr. Trump, as it involved a sitting president. In another sense, though, it was easier, as it concerned an episode said to have taken place before Mr. Clinton took office (Paula Jones, an Arkansas state employee, said Mr. Clinton had made lewd advances in a hotel room when he was governor of the state).

The case is best remembered for a prediction in Justice Stevens’s majority opinion that “it appears to us highly unlikely to occupy any substantial amount of petitioner’s time.” In fact, it led to Mr. Clinton’s impeachment.

In the same paragraph, Justice Stevens made a second prediction.

“In the more than 200-year history of the Republic, only three sitting presidents have been subjected to suits for their private actions,” he wrote. “If the past is any indicator, it seems unlikely that a deluge of such litigation will ever engulf the presidency.”

Suits against Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman were dismissed, and one against President John F. Kennedy involving a car accident during his 1960 campaign was settled. The case against Mr. Clinton added a fourth.

Justice Stevens, who died in 2019, failed to anticipate the enormous volume of civil and criminal litigation in which Mr. Trump and his businesses have been named as defendants.

We are now over the two-hour mark of the Supreme Court’s arguments in the Trump immunity case. The Justice Department lawyer has continued to face skeptical questions from many of the court’s conservatives, several of whom appear particularly focused on how to draw the line between a president’s core powers and non-core powers. In other words, what actions by a president might be shielded from prosecution and what would not. The questioning suggests that some of the justices may favor a ruling that could lead to more lower-court proceedings, perhaps delaying the trial.

The Supreme Court’s relatively new process (coming out of Covid) of letting each justice ask questions at the end in order of seniority has an interesting consequence, as seen here. Dreeben kept wanting to say these things about government legal memos and to go into the details about the actions Trump is accused of taking, but the Republican-appointed justices kept cutting him off. It’s the turn of Kagan, a Democratic appointee, to ask any final questions she wants, and she is letting him talk on and on.

Much of the discussion this morning has swirled around the question of whether, without immunity, presidents will be hounded by their rivals with malicious charges after leaving office. Alito and other conservatives on the court seem concerned that the Trump prosecutions will open the door to endless attacks against future presidents.

The other main topic of discussion has been whether presidents enjoy some form of immunity for carrying out their official duties and, if so, how those official actions are defined. That’s an important question for the Trump election case because Trump has claimed he was acting in his role as president when, by his own account, he sought to root out fraud in the 2020 vote count. It’s also important for a different reason: the justices could send the official acts question back to a lower court to sort out, and that process could take a long time, delaying the case's trial until after this year’s election.

Justice Alito suggests that there is a risk to our stable democracy if presidents who lose close elections would not be allowed to retire in peace but could face prosecution. He has essentially flipped the situation under consideration upside down: that Trump is being prosecuted for having used fraud to remain in power after losing a close election.

A part of this exchange between Justice Alito and the Justice Department's lawyer, Dreeben, gets at a pressure point in American-style democracy and the rule of law. One of the safeguards against illegitimate prosecutions of ex-presidents, Dreeben says, is that if the Justice Department has advised the president that doing something would be lawful, the department could not later turn around and prosecute the now-former president for relying on that advice and doing that thing.

Alito points out that this creates an incentive for presidents to appoint attorneys general who will just tell them that anything they want to do would be legal. Indeed — that is a critique of the Office of Legal Counsel system, in which politically appointed lawyers decide what the law means for the executive branch.

An example: During the George W. Bush administration, memos about post-9/11 surveillance and torture were written by a politically appointed lawyer with idiosyncratically broad views of a president’s supposed power, as commander in chief, to authorize violations of surveillance and torture laws. The Justice Department later withdrew those memos as espousing a false view of the law, but held that officials who had taken action based on those memos could not be charged with crimes.

Justice Alito suggests there are not enough legal safeguards in place to protect presidents against malicious prosecution if they don’t have some form of immunity. He tells Dreeben that the grand jury process isn’t much of a protection because prosecutors, as the saying goes, can indict a ham sandwich. When Dreeben tries to argue that prosecutors sometimes don’t indict people who don’t deserve it, Alito dismissively says, “Every once in a while there’s an eclipse too.”

If you are just joining in, the justices are questioning the Justice Department lawyer, Michael Dreeben, about the government’s argument that former President Trump is not absolutely immune from prosecution on charges that he plotted to subvert the 2020 election. Dreeben has faced skeptical questions from several of the conservative justices, including both Justices Alito and Kavanaugh, who have suggested that the fraud conspiracy statute being used against the former president is vague. That statute is central to the government’s case against Trump.

Justice Alito now joins Justice Kavanaugh in suggesting that the fraud conspiracy statute is very vague and broadly drawn. That is bad news for the indictment brought against Trump by Jack Smith, the special counsel.

The scope and viability of this fraud statute, which is absolutely central to the Trump indictment, wasn’t on the menu of issues seemingly at play in this hearing. Kavanaugh and Alito appear to have gone out of their way to question its use in the Trump case.

Justice Sotomayor points out that under the Trump team’s theory that a criminal statute has to clearly state that it applies to the presidency for it to cover a president’s official actions, there would essentially be no accountability at all. Because only a tiny handful of laws mention the president, that means a president could act contrary to them without violating them. As a result, the Senate could not even impeach a president for violating criminal statutes, she says — because he would not be violating those laws if they don’t apply to the president.

Dreeben is under heavy fire from the court’s conservatives.

The precedent most helpful to Trump: Nixon v. Fitzgerald.

In 1982, in Nixon v. Fitzgerald , the Supreme Court ruled that former President Richard M. Nixon had absolute immunity from civil lawsuits — ones brought by private litigants seeking money — for conduct “within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.”

The ruling is helpful to former President Donald J. Trump, establishing as it does that immunity can be expansive, lives on after a president leaves office and extends to the very limits of what may be said to be official conduct.

But the decision also falls well short of dictating the outcome in the case that is being argued on Thursday, which concerns a criminal prosecution, not a civil suit.

The 1982 case arose from a lawsuit brought by an Air Force analyst, A. Ernest Fitzgerald, who said he was fired in 1970 in retaliation for his criticism of cost overruns. By the time the Supreme Court acted, Nixon had been out of office for several years.

“In view of the special nature of the president’s constitutional office and functions,” Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote for the majority 5-to-4 decision, “we think it appropriate to recognize absolute presidential immunity from damages liability” for Nixon’s official conduct, broadly defined.

But the decision drew a sharp line between civil suits, which it said can be abusive and harassing, and criminal prosecutions like the one Mr. Trump is facing.

“In view of the visibility of his office and the effect of his actions on countless people, the president would be an easily identifiable target for suits for civil damages,” Justice Powell wrote, adding, “The court has recognized before that there is a lesser public interest in actions for civil damages than, for example, in criminal prosecutions.”

Chief Justice Warren E. Burger underscored the point in a concurring opinion. “The immunity is limited to civil damages claims,” he wrote.

Even in the context of civil suits, Nixon v. Fitzgerald conferred immunity only on conduct within the “outer perimeter” of a president’s official duties. Jack Smith, the special counsel, has said that Mr. Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy are well outside that line.

The Justice Department has already granted sitting presidents immunity while they are in office.

Former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that former presidents must enjoy “complete immunity” from prosecution for any crimes they committed in office would significantly expand the temporary immunity that sitting presidents already have.

Nothing in the Constitution or federal statutes says that presidents are shielded from being prosecuted while in office, and no court has ever ruled that way. But political appointees in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, whose interpretations are binding on the executive branch, have declared that the Constitution implicitly establishes such immunity.

This argument boils down to practicalities of governance: The stigma of being indicted and the burden of a trial would unduly interfere with a president’s ability to carry out his duties, Robert G. Dixon Jr. , then the head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, wrote in a memo in September 1973 . This would prevent the executive branch “from accomplishing its constitutional functions” in a way that cannot “be justified by an overriding need,” he added.

Mr. Dixon, an appointee of President Richard M. Nixon, wrote his memo against the backdrop of the Watergate scandal, when Mr. Nixon faced a criminal investigation by a special counsel, Archibald Cox. The next month, Nixon’s solicitor general, Robert H. Bork , in a court brief , similarly argued for an “inference” that the Constitution makes sitting presidents immune from indictment and trial.

(That same month, Mr. Nixon had Mr. Cox fired in the so-called Saturday Night Massacre. Mr. Nixon’s attorney general and deputy attorney general resigned rather than carry out his orders to oust the prosecutor; Mr. Nixon then turned to Mr. Bork, the department’s No. 3, who proved willing to do it. Amid a political backlash, Mr. Nixon was forced to allow a new special counsel, Leon Jaworski , to resume the investigation.)

The question arose again a generation later, when President Bill Clinton faced an investigation by Kenneth Starr, an independent counsel, into the Whitewater land deal that morphed into an inquiry into his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern. Randolph D. Moss , Mr. Clinton’s appointee to lead the Office of Legal Counsel, reviewed the Justice Department’s 1973 opinions and reaffirmed their conclusions .

Legal scholars, as well as staff for prosecutors investigating presidents, have disputed the legitimacy of that constitutional theory. In 1974, Mr. Jaworski received a memo from his staff saying he could, in fact, indict Mr. Nixon while he was in office, and he later made that case in a court brief .

And in a 56-page memo in 1998, Ronald Rotunda, a prominent conservative constitutional scholar whom Mr. Starr hired as a consultant on his legal team, rejected the view that presidents are immune from prosecution while in office. Mr. Starr later said that he had concluded that he could indict Mr. Clinton.

“It is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting president for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the president’s official duties,” Mr. Rotunda wrote. “In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law.”

Mr. Starr commissioned the Rotunda memo as he was drafting a potential indictment of Mr. Clinton, and Mr. Starr decided that he could charge the president while in office. In the end, however, both Mr. Jaworski and Mr. Starr decided to let congressional impeachment proceedings play out and did not try to bring indictments while Mr. Nixon and Mr. Clinton remained in office.

The question may never be definitively tested in the courts. In 1999, Congress allowed a law that created independent counsels like Mr. Starr — prosecutors who do not report to the attorney general — to expire, and the Justice Department issued regulations to allow for the appointment of semiautonomous special counsels for inquiries into potential high-level wrongdoing in the executive branch.

Special counsels are, however, bound by Justice Departments policies and practices — including the Office of Legal Counsel’s proclamation that sitting presidents are temporarily immune from criminal indictment or trial.

Alan Feuer and Charlie Savage

Is there such a thing as executive immunity?

There are no direct precedents on the broad question of whether presidents have criminal immunity for their official actions.

The Supreme Court has held that presidents are absolutely immune from civil lawsuits related to their official acts , in part to protect them against ceaseless harassment and judicial scrutiny of their day-to-day decisions. The court has also held that presidents can be sued over their personal actions .

The Supreme Court has further found that while presidents are sometimes immune from judicial subpoenas requesting internal executive branch information, that privilege is not absolute. Even presidents, the court has decided, can be forced to obey a subpoena in a criminal case if the need for information is great enough.

But until Mr. Trump wound up in court, the Supreme Court has never had a reason to decide whether former presidents are protected from being prosecuted for official actions. The Justice Department has long maintained that sitting presidents are temporarily immune from prosecution because criminal charges would distract them from their constitutional functions. But since Mr. Trump is not in office, that is not an issue.

The closest the country has come to the prosecution of a former president over official actions came in 1974, when Richard M. Nixon resigned to avoid being impeached over the Watergate scandal. But a pardon by his successor, President Gerald R. Ford, protected Nixon from indictment by the Watergate special prosecutor.

Mr. Smith’s team has argued that Ford’s pardon — and Nixon’s acceptance of it — demonstrates that both men understood that Nixon was not already immune. Mr. Trump’s team has sought to counter that point by arguing — inaccurately — that Nixon faced potential criminal charges only over private actions, like tax fraud. But the special prosecutor weighed charging Nixon with abusing his office to obstruct justice.

Mr. Trump’s team has argued that denying his claims risks unleashing a routine practice of prosecuting former presidents for partisan reasons. But Mr. Smith’s team has argued that if courts endorse Mr. Trump’s theory, then future presidents who are confident of surviving impeachment could, with impunity, commit any number of crimes in connection with their official actions.

“Such a result would severely undermine the compelling public interest in the rule of law and criminal accountability,” prosecutors wrote.

Hypothetical questions test the limits of Trump’s immunity claim.

An exchange during an appeals court argument in January about a hypothetical political assassination tested former President Donald J. Trump’s claim that he is absolutely immune from prosecution for his official conduct.

His lawyer, D. John Sauer, has urged the justices to consider only what he is actually accused of: plotting to subvert the 2020 election. But hypothetical questions are routine at the Supreme Court, and they have a way of illuminating the contours and implications of legal theories.

That is what happened in January, when Judge Florence Y. Pan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had to press Mr. Sauer to get an answer to a hypothetical question: Are former presidents absolutely immune from prosecution, even for murders they ordered while in office?

“I asked you a yes-or-no question,” Judge Pan said. “Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?”

Mr. Sauer said his answer was a “qualified yes,” by which he meant no. He explained that prosecution would be permitted only if the president were first impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.

Impeachments of presidents are rare: There have been four in the history of the Republic, two of them of Mr. Trump. The number of convictions, which require a two-thirds majority of the Senate: zero.

Mr. Sauer’s statement called to mind a 2019 federal appeals court argument over whether Mr. Trump could block state prosecutors from obtaining his tax and business records. He maintained that he was immune not only from prosecution but also from criminal investigation so long as he was president.

At that time, Judge Denny Chin of the Second Circuit pressed William S. Consovoy, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, asking about his client’s famous statement that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing political support.

“Local authorities couldn’t investigate?” Judge Chin asked, adding: “Nothing could be done? That’s your position?”

“That is correct,” said Mr. Consovoy. “That is correct.”

This headline followed: “If Trump Shoots Someone on 5th Ave., Does He Have Immunity? His Lawyer Says Yes.”

For his part, Mr. Sauer does not seem eager to revisit the question about assassinations. Indeed, in asking the Supreme Court to hear Mr. Trump’s appeal, Mr. Sauer urged the justices not to be distracted by “lurid hypotheticals” that “almost certainly never will occur.”

What counts as an official act as president?

Another issue that has come up in lower courts in this case was what counted as an official act for a president, as opposed to a private action that was not connected to his constitutional responsibilities.

If the justices want to dispose of the dispute without definitively ruling on whether presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts, they could do so by finding that the specific steps former President Donald J. Trump took to remain in office that are cited in the federal indictment were not official actions. If so, the broader immunity question would not matter, and the prosecution could proceed.

The acts by Mr. Trump cited in the indictment include using deceit to organize fake slates of electors and to try to get state officials to subvert legitimate election results; trying to get the Justice Department and Vice President Mike Pence to help fraudulently alter the results; directing his supporters to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; and exploiting the violence and chaos of their ensuing riot.

In its court filings, Mr. Trump’s team has sought to reframe those accusations not only as official actions, but innocuous or even admirable ones.

“All five types of conduct alleged in the indictment constitute official acts,” they wrote. “They all reflect President Trump’s efforts and duties, squarely as chief executive of the United States, to advocate for and defend the integrity of the federal election, in accord with his view that it was tainted by fraud and irregularity.”

Mr. Smith’s team has argued that they should be seen as the efforts of a person seeking office, not of an officeholder carrying out government responsibilities.

“Those alleged acts were carried out by and on behalf of the defendant in his capacity as a candidate, and the extensive involvement of private attorneys and campaign staff in procuring the fraudulent slates as alleged in the indictment underscores that those activities were not within the outer perimeter of the office of the presidency,” they wrote.

Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing Mr. Trump’s case in Federal District Court in Washington, issued her ruling rejecting Mr. Trump’s immunity claim without including any detailed analysis of whether his acts were “official.”

If the Supreme Court were to send the matter back to her to take a stab at answering that question before restarting the appeals process, Mr. Trump will, at a minimum, have used up additional valuable time that could help push any trial past the election.

Noah Weiland and Alan Feuer

Here are the lawyers arguing before the Supreme Court.

The two lawyers arguing before the Supreme Court on Thursday have each played a role in some of the defining legal battles stemming from Mr. Trump’s term in office.

Arguing the case for the special counsel Jack Smith will be Michael Dreeben, who worked for a different special counsel’s office that scrutinized Mr. Trump’s presidency: Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into links between Russia and associates of Mr. Trump. Mr. Dreeben, one of the nation’s leading criminal law experts, has made more than 100 oral arguments before the Supreme Court, including when he served as deputy solicitor general.

On Mr. Mueller’s team, he handled pretrial litigation, defending the scope of the investigation and preventing the office from losing cases on appeal. He also helped with a second part of Mr. Mueller’s investigation, examining whether Mr. Trump had tried to obstruct the inquiry in his dealings with associates involved in the case.

Mr. Dreeben, who was heavily involved in the writing of Mr. Mueller’s final report on his investigation, supported an interpretation of presidential power that emphasized limits on what a president could do while exercising his or her powers, according to “Where Law Ends,” a book written by Andrew Weissmann, another prosecutor on Mr. Mueller’s team.

After Mr. Mueller’s investigation concluded, Mr. Dreeben took a teaching position at Georgetown University’s law school and returned to private practice at O’Melveny, arguing in front of the Supreme Court on behalf of the city of Austin over a First Amendment dispute about the placement of digital billboards.

Opposing Mr. Dreeben in front of the Supreme Court will be D. John Sauer, a lawyer based in St. Louis who once served as the solicitor general of Missouri. Mr. Sauer joined Mr. Trump’s legal team late last year to handle appellate matters, including his challenge to a gag order imposed on him in the election case in Washington.

As Missouri’s solicitor general, Mr. Sauer took part in a last-ditch effort to keep Mr. Trump in power after his defeat in the 2020 election, filing a motion on behalf of his state and five others in support of an attempt by Texas to have the Supreme Court toss out the results of the vote count in several key swing states.

He also joined in an unsuccessful bid with Texas in asking the Supreme Court to stop the Biden administration from rescinding a Trump-era immigration program that forces certain asylum seekers arriving at the southwestern border to await approval in Mexico.

When he left the solicitor general’s office last January, Mr. Sauer, who once clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, returned to his private firm, the James Otis Law Group. The firm is named after a prominent Revolutionary War-era lawyer who built a career out of challenging abuses by British colonial forces.

To justify his defense in the immunity case, Trump turns to a familiar tactic.

When the Supreme Court considers Donald J. Trump’s sweeping claims of executive immunity on Thursday, it will break new legal ground, mulling for the first time the question of whether a former president can avoid being prosecuted for things he did in office.

But in coming up with the argument, Mr. Trump used a tactic on which he has often leaned in his life as a businessman and politician: He flipped the facts on their head in an effort to create a different reality.

At the core of his immunity defense is a claim that seeks to upend the story told by federal prosecutors in an indictment charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 election. In that indictment, prosecutors described a criminal conspiracy by Mr. Trump to subvert the election results and stay in power.

In Mr. Trump’s telling, however, those same events are official acts that he undertook as president to safeguard the integrity of the race and cannot be subject to prosecution.

In many ways, Mr. Trump’s immunity claim is breathtaking. In one instance, his lawyers went so far as to say that a president could not be prosecuted even for using the military to assassinate a rival unless he was first impeached.

But the wholesale rewriting of the government’s accusations — which first appeared six months ago in Mr. Trump’s motion to dismiss the election interference case — may be the most audacious part of his defense. It was certainly a requisite step his lawyers had to take to advance the immunity argument.

Other courts have ruled that presidents enjoy limited immunity from civil lawsuits for things they did as part of the formal responsibilities of their job. To extend that legal concept to criminal charges, Mr. Trump’s lawyers needed to reframe all of the allegations lodged against him in the election interference case as official acts of his presidency rather than as the actions of a candidate misusing his power.

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Friday, April 26

Previous issues, submit a tip.

On encampments, free speech, and ‘time, place, and manner’ rules on university campuses

President Christopher Eisgruber.

Sameer a. khan / fotobuddy. courtesy of the office of communications.

Confrontations at Columbia , Yale , and other campuses around the country have highlighted the importance of “ time, place, and manner ” regulations to universities’ academic and educational missions. Because the enforcement of these rules is essential to our community as well, I wanted to offer some observations about their role at Princeton and their relationship to other free speech principles.

Princeton’s free expression policy , like the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, protects a strikingly broad range of speech. It “guarantees all members of the University community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.” It specifically protects even speech that “most members of the University community [deem] to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.”

Over the course of this academic year, we have seen again just how broad these rights are. In August and September, for example, I resisted calls to censor or condemn a controversial book that criticized Israel in harsh terms. In subsequent months, the University repeatedly protected the right to protest even when those protests included chants offensive to many members of the University — including to me personally.

Despite its breadth, Princeton’s free speech policy — again, like the First Amendment to the Constitution — contains exceptions. For example, it prohibits genuine threats and harassment. It also explicitly recognizes that “the University may reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activities of the University.”

The University thus may, and indeed does, limit the times and places where protests can occur. It may, and indeed does, prohibit tactics, such as encampments or the occupation of buildings, that interfere with the scholarly and educational mission of the University or that increase safety risks to members of the University community.

These time, place, and manner regulations are viewpoint-neutral and content-neutral. They apply to any protest or event, regardless of which side they take or what issues they raise.

Time, place, and manner regulations are fully consistent with — indeed, they are necessary to — Princeton’s commitment to free speech. The purpose of our policy is “to promote a lively and fearless freedom of debate and deliberation,” not simply to maximize expression in all its forms, no matter how disruptive.

Dialogue, debate, and deliberation depend upon maintaining a campus that is free from intimidation, obstruction, risks to physical safety, or other impediments to the University’s scholarship, research, and teaching missions.

Princeton’s time, place, and manner regulations include a clear and explicit prohibition upon encampments. They provide that “camping in vehicles, tents, or other structures is not permitted on campus. Sleeping in outdoor space of any kind is prohibited.”

Encampments can obstruct others from moving freely or conducting University business. They can create health and safety risks. They require significant staff time to keep occupants and bystanders safe, thereby diverting people and resources from fulfilling their primary purpose. They can intimidate community members who must walk past them. There is no practical way to bar outsiders from joining the encampments.

As recent events vividly illustrate, encampments are also prone to become sites of confrontation. Columbia University moved classes online because of concerns about the safety of its students. At Yale University, a student reportedly had to seek medical attention after an altercation at an encampment.

At ordinary protests, our Free Expression Facilitators, in partnership with the Department of Public Safety, work assiduously to minimize or de-escalate confrontations before they become harmful; the 24/7 nature of encampments makes that assignment nearly impossible.

Our ability to discuss difficult, sensitive topics depends partly on the culture of our community. I am grateful to everyone who has helped Princeton to talk constructively about hard questions during this very challenging year.

Our success also depends on the consistent application of our policies protecting free speech. Princeton will continue to enforce those policies resolutely, including both this University’s expansive protections for the expression of controversial ideas and the time, place, and manner regulations that enable us to engage in thoughtful dialogue, debate, and deliberation about those ideas.

Christopher Eisgruber ’83 serves as Princeton University’s 20th president.

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