Mothers and children trapped in poverty in our inner cities, rusted out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation. Part of the speech’s case for radical reforms, it pictures the American heartland as a post-industrial graveyard: The first metaphor in the inaugural address (there are just eight) is nevertheless striking. Trump’s speeches, by contrast, tend to be metaphor-poor. “Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness a mighty stream.” In America’s history, Martin Luther King’s magnificent “ I have a dream” address – delivered on the same steps as Trump’s Inaugural address – unfolds in a “mighty stream” of metaphors: financial, architectural, meteorological, geological, even hydrological. The great power of pictorial language is to make abstract ideas concrete and memorable, and distant things immediately present to minds’ eyes. You can tell a lot about a writer by her stock of similes and metaphors. So what does a rhetorical analysis of Mr Trump’s inaugural address tell us about his vision, and the emotional bases on which he hopes to animate the “great national effort to rebuild our county and restore its promise for all our people” his opening statement announced? American carnage It lies in the ability to arouse the passions of the audience:Įither by exhortation, … or by moving the people to hope, or to fear, or to ambition, or desire of glory … This is something Donald John Trump well understands. The greatest persuasive force that an orator can channel on such grand occasions does not lie in the unforced force of the better argument. Mr Trump and his team will have drawn on all the President-elect’s resources, and those of a team of speech writers, to match or better his predecessor’s celebrated eloquence:Īs the highest dignity is in the people, as the concerns of the republic are of the utmost importance … a grand and imposing manner of addressing them seems necessary … ( Cicero)
Think JFK’s “ ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” Many of the most famous Presidential statements in US history have been made in service of this important function. The other key function of this ceremonial address is to set forth the new President’s deliberative vision for his time in office, and to reunite the nation divided by the democratic electoral process. No specific charges about the corruption of the “elites” (but see below).Īfter the thank yous, no individual was singled out for Mr Trump’s particular praise or censure. There were no broadsides against the corruption of the media. There was no mention of anything being “rigged”. He praised the Obamas’ grace in presiding over the peaceful transition of power: “They have been magnificent, thank you.” He thanked the Chief Justice and past Presidents present for the occasion. The new President began almost conventionally. And, although the media has picked up on several darker flashes in the address, Mr Trump was on his best behaviour. One function of the inauguration address is for the new President to perform with due dignity the august role he has just assumed. For, appropriately, it was one of the reality-television-come- POTUS’s most restrained performances. It will be interesting in this light to see the reaction of Trump’s alt-right supporters to his Inauguration speech.
0 kommentar(er)
