Presidents Biden, Trump have chance to give important speeches

LAWRENCE — Both the departing and incoming presidents have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give important speeches, according to a scholar of presidential rhetoric. It remains to be seen if they will seize the day.

Robert Rowland, University of Kansas professor of communication studies, is available to journalists to comment upon the farewell address to be presented Jan. 15 by President Joe Biden and the second inaugural address to be presented Jan. 20 by Donald Trump.

Rowland is the author of the 2021 book “The Rhetoric of Donald Trump: Nationalist Populism and American Democracy” (University of Kansas Press). 

“Departing presidents are less constrained by politics than at any other point in their presidency,” Rowland said. “On occasion, this lack of constraint provides the space for important statements about the status of the nation. Since World War II, the farewell addresses of presidents Eisenhower, Reagan and Obama were especially important for assessing where we were and warning the nation about dangers that lay ahead.

“President Biden has an opportunity to present an important address, if he chooses to focus on the future of the nation, rather than his four years in office.” 

Rowland said great inaugural addresses — such as those by Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama — provide a vision of the place of the nation in history, the values that should define who we are and a road map of the nation’s agenda.

“President Donald Trump’s first inaugural address largely failed to achieve those ends,” Rowland said. “It was derided by scholars and commentators for presenting an essentially negative and inaccurate vision of what Trump called ‘American carnage.’

“In the inaugural for his second term, President Trump has an opportunity to present a different vision than he did in his first. His comments during the transition suggest that he is unlikely to shift his approach, but it is worth remembering that the great inaugural addresses all presented an optimistic vision of the future of the nation, even though they were presented at times of great economic distress.”