scholarly journals Rhetorical Analysis of Joe Biden’s Inauguration Address

Author(s):  
Neni Nurkhamidah ◽  
Raihana Ziani Fahira ◽  
Ayu Ratna Ningtyas

The inaugural speeches mark the beginning of a new term in office for a community or government leader, such as the president. This reaction must persuade the people to believe in the government and the programs will be enacted. This research aims at finding the rhetorical appeals of President Joe Biden's inaugural address on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States. The research is based on Aristotle's theory called a rhetorical theory. The resercher employs descriptive qualitative as a methodology to analyze the data from the spoken utterances of the speech. The result shows that Joe Biden uses all of the Aristotelian rhetoric strategies in his inaugural address, which are: ethos, pathos, and logos. The data shows that Joe Biden uses pathos as 55% of his speech, followed by ethos 37%, and logos 8%.. Joe Biden skillfully used and implied Aristotle's rhetorical theory in his inauguration address to engage and build trust with the American people. From the analysis, the researcher has concluded that a good speaker can use all of the three elements of the rhetorical theory and imply them in the speech or writing.

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-138
Author(s):  
Earnest N. Bracey ◽  

Many revisionist historians today try to make the late President Andrew Jackson out to be something that he was not—that is, a man of all the people. In our uninhibited, polarized culture, the truth should mean something. Therefore, studying the character of someone like Andrew Jackson should be fully investigated, and researched, as this work attempts to do. Indeed, this article tells us that we should not accept lies and conspiracy theories as the truth. Such revisionist history comes into sharp focus in Bradley J. Birzer’s latest book, In Defense of Andrew Jackson. Indeed, his (selective) efforts are surprisingly wrong, as he tries to give alternative explanations for Jackson’s corrupt life and political malfeasance. Hence, the lawlessness of Andrew Jackson cannot be ignored or “white washed” from American history. More important, discrediting the objective truth about Andrew Jackson, and his blatant misuse of executive power as the U.S. President should never be dismissed, like his awful treatment of Blacks and other minorities in the United States. It should have been important to Birzer to get his story right about Andrew Jackson, with a more balanced approach in regards to the man. Finally, Jackson should have tried to eliminate Black slavery in his life time, not embrace it, based on the ideas of human dignity and our common humanity. To be brutally honest, it is one thing to disagree with Andrew Jackson; but it is quite another to feel that he, as President of the United States, was on the side of all the American people during his time, because it was not true. Perhaps the biggest question is: Could Andrew Jackson have made a positive difference for every American, even Black slaves and Native Americans?


1917 ◽  
Vol 85 (17) ◽  
pp. 455-456

The following is the text of the resolutions which officially entered the United States into the world war:— “Whereas the imperial German government has committed repeated acts of war against the government and the people of the United States of America; therefore be it “Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in congress assembled, that the state of war between the United States and the imperial German government, which has thus been thrust upon the United States, is hereby formally declared; and that the President be and he is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the government to carry on war against the imperial German government; and to bring the conflict to a successful termination all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States.”


Author(s):  
Peter Temin

This chapter describes three concepts of government. Democracy is the government of, for and by the people. It provides services to all its members and insures them against a variety of risks, ranging from bankruptcy to the accident of being born poor and with a dark skin. Autarchy is government by a person or family that takes care of itself with little or no concern for the rest of the population. Oligarchy stands in between these extremes and varies by the size of the oligarchy. The United States in the 19th century was the uneasy combination of a demographic North and an oligarchic South. The country approached democracy in the 20th century, but this trajectory reversed after 1970, leading to an oligarchic dual economy.


1973 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. J. Sharpe

In his celebrated study of American democracy written in 1888, Lord Bryce reserved his most condemnatory reflections for city government and in a muchquoted passage asserted: ‘There is no denying that the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States. The deficiencies of the National government tell but little for evil on the welfare of the people. The faults of the State governments are insignificant compared with the extravagance, corruption and mismanagement which mark the administration of most of the great cities'sangeetha.


1906 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Maurice Low

A century of constitutional government in the United States has served to emphasize the wisdom of Hamilton's warning of “the tendency of the legislative authority to absorb every other.” He clearly foresaw and attempted to guard against, dangers that today are only too apparent. “In governments purely republican,” he wrote, “this tendency is almost irresistible. The representatives of the people, in a popular assembly, seem sometimes to fancy that they are the people themselves, and betray strong symptoms of impatience and disgust at the least sign of opposition from any other quarter; as if the exercise of its rights, by either the executive or the judiciary, were a breach of their privilege and an outrage to their dignity. They often appear disposed to exert an imperious control over the other departments; and, as they commonly have the people on their side, they always act with such momentum as to make it very difficult for the other members of the government to maintain the balance of the Constitution.”Never did human ingenuity devise a more nicely balanced system of government than when the framers of the Constitution allocated to the executive and to the legislature the exercise of powers not to be infringed by the other; but like many things human the intent has been perverted. Every person familiar with the Constitution, the debates in the convention, and the writings of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay in The Federalist, must know that the purpose of the framers of the Constitution was to create a system of government by which the President should become neither the creature nor the controller of the legislature; and by vesting certain exclusive powers in the popular branch and certain other powers in the Senate to provide that the line of demarcation between the two houses should not be overstepped.


1917 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 757-762

The mission for which I have the honor to speak is charged by the Government and the people of the United States of America with a message to the Government and the people of Russia.The mission comes from a democratic republic. Its members are commissioned and instructed by a President who holds his high office as Chief Executive of more than one hundred million free people, by virtue of a popular election in which more than eighteen million votes were freely cast and fairly counted, pursuant to law, by universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage.


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl M. Felice

AbstractThe Federalist Papers are a set of eighty-five essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay during the founding era of the United States, with the purpose of persuading the states to adopt the Constitution as the replacement for the Articles of Confederation. The Papers were some of the most impressive political writings of the time, and are still cited frequently today by the United States Supreme Court. The arguments set forth in the Papers attempted to defend the Constitution's aristocratic characteristics against its opponents, the Anti-Federalists, while also attempting to normalize an anti-democratic, representative form of government in the minds of the American people. The clever advocacy and skillful rhetoric employed by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay led to the eventual ratification of the Constitution, and consequently the creation of the most powerful and prosperous nation on the planet. This paper examines the differences between the traditional forms of government, the political philosophies of the Papers’ authors, the anti-democratic, aristocratic nature of the government proposed by the Constitution, and the arguments for and against its adoption, as articulated in the Papers and various other writings.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 39-44
Author(s):  
Raghav Sharma

Contemporary political discourse in the United States is rife with ideas on how our society can change and reform — in particular, issues such as campaign finance reform, income inequality, and the use and control of firearms are in need of a comprehensive response that is attentive to the needs and will of the American people. Sadly, the relationship between the American people and our government is currently in a dismal state. This relationship between the people and the government has become unbalanced and unfair, reducing the likelihood of change and deterring individuals from believing in their ability to influence such reform. The need to understand our capacity to effect change, though, is absolutely necessary. The issues facing the American government at this time are as numerous as they are serious, but ideas and proposals are coming forward with the potential to rebalance this relationship. More importantly, they have the potential to usher in a new American Revolution that makes good on the democratic promise of a government for, of and by the people. 


Author(s):  
William E. Rapp

Despite the high regard for the US military by the American public, a number of tensions continue to grow in civil-military relations in the United States. These are exacerbated by a lack of clarity, and thus productive debate, in the various relationships inherent in civil and military interaction. By trisecting civil military relations into the relations between the people and the military, the military and the government, and the people and the government on military issues, this chapter examines the potential for crisis in coming years. Doing so allows for greater theoretical and popular understanding and thus action in addressing the tensions, for there is cause for concern and action in each of the legs of this interconnected triangle.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1952 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 348-354
Author(s):  
PAUL B. MAGNUSON

When I received your kind invitation to give the annual Trimble lecture, I wrote Dr. Compton that I had several pretty sound medical papers worked up on the causes of pain in the lower back—I've been working in that field for more than 40 years—but that the ladies might be much more interested in some information on the President's Commission on the Health Needs of the Nation. So, in deference to the ladies, I am going to talk about the latter topic. Last November, without a word of warning I got a call from the White House that the President of the United States wanted to see me. I took the train from Chicago that night, and the next morning met with the President. The President laid the cards right on the table. He said he was deeply concerned with the health of the American people in these trying days of all-out-mobilization. He said he had made certain proposals to bring more and better medical care to the people, but these proposals had precipitated an emotional argument which clouded the issue. The President said he was not necessarily committed to any one plan—if any group could come up with a better series of proposals than the ones he advocated, he would be the first to support them if they would insure better health for all the people. For that reason, he said, he had decided after long deliberation to set up a Presidential Commission to get at the facts. He offered me the chairmanship, and promised me an absolutely free hand in choosing the members of the Commission.


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