While the United States was founded upon the premise of religious freedom, religious rhetoric has pervaded presidential addresses since the Founding. While such addresses were rare at the Founding because constitutional interpretation restricted presidents’ ability to campaign and communicate directly with the American people, the inaugural address is one speech that has existed since George Washington’s inauguration in 1789. During presidential inaugurations, presidents introduce themselves as presidents and establish their policy directions for their presidencies. In this context, according to the role of the rhetorical presidency, early presidents used religious rhetoric in order to unite the nation under a unitary God, connecting the nation under common values and orienting the democracy as pre-destined by God for success. As distance increased from the American Revolution, presidents began to use religion in more personal ways, using religious rhetoric and even Scripture to support their policies, while continuing to use religion in unifying ways. By the beginning of the twentieth century, presidents began to appeal to the people more publicly, actively campaigning for their policies. In this context, religion began to be used as a tool of persuasion to advance presidents’ policies. This trend continued into the Cold War, when presidents invoked religion in order to establish America’s identity in a religious framework against an anti-religious, anti-democratic enemy, while simultaneously using specific religious allusions on the domestic front to further their policies in sometimes divisive ways. As the Cold War concluded, presidents continued to use religion to advance their own policies, appealing to certain audiences through religious rhetoric and making pleas for their policies through religious allegory.

The aim of this essay was to demonstrate whether the descriptions of Donald Trump’s inauguration 2017 differed from Joe Biden’s inauguration 2021 in three of the biggest British newspapers: The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph. One article from each newspaper concerning the inaugurations 2017 and 2021 was investigated. Different linguistic tools such as path strategy, the inverted pyramid, whether passive or active voice was used, polysemy, quantitative iconicity, denotation or connotation, binary oppositions, metaphors and newsworthiness were focused on. The results have shown that the British newspapers reported in favor of Biden. Trump was often described with words of negative connotations such as dark, fears, anxious, grim, uncertain and testy, while Biden was often described with words of positive connotations such as rejoin, repeal, unity and fulfill. Further, Trump was often actor in sentences making him a bad guy, while Biden was often actor in sentences making him a good guy. Since Trump was often connected with negativity, news about him was considered to be of higher newsworthiness, and he was mentioned considerably more in the articles about Biden’s inauguration than the former President Obama was mentioned in the articles about Trump. Furthermore, Trump was described more than Biden, as for instance his high age was referred to, but not Biden’s age, which is higher than Trump’s. The metaphors ARGUMENT IS WAR and POLITICS IS WAR are used in articles about both presidents.

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