Joe Biden as a Political Rhetor: A Rhetorical Discourse Analysis of His 2020 Campaign Speeches
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Language is among the most consequential instruments of political power, enabling leaders to project ideology, construct identity, and persuade an electorate. Campaign speeches in particular are sites where aspiring leaders deploy persuasive resources to win public support. This study examined how Joe Biden constructed himself as a political rhetor during the 2020 United States presidential campaign. Employing a descriptive-qualitative design, the study analyzed three of Biden’s campaign speeches—his Super Tuesday victory speech (Los Angeles, March 3, 2020), his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention (Wilmington, August 20, 2020), and his address at Gettysburg (October 6, 2020). The analysis was anchored on Van den Hoven’s Rhetorical Discourse Analysis and Aristotle’s theory of persuasion, which identifies three artistic proofs: ethos, pathos, and logos. Findings reveal that Biden consistently mobilized all three appeals, with pathos most prominent, followed by logos and then ethos. Pathos was realized through expressions of empathy, appreciation of ordinary citizens, and the framing of his opponent’s insufficiency; logos through cause-and-effect reasoning about his platform, quotations from poets and former presidents, and the use of statistics; and ethos through references to organizations and movements, political endorsements, family, and national identity. At the level of rhetorical strategy, Biden relied on the inclusive pronoun “we” and the personal pronoun “I,” the high-modality verb “will,” and a positive-self versus negative-other framing in which he cast himself as protagonist and his opponent as antagonist. Together these resources constructed Biden as an empathic, appreciative, confident, reliable, active, good, authoritative, and committed political rhetor. The study contributes to scholarship on political discourse and offers pedagogical value for the teaching of persuasion and rhetoric.
Source: European Modern Studies Journal
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7203629344