Setting and sharing the stage: President Biden strives to unite
Comms experts break down the inauguration’s messaging highlights, speechwriting tactics and storytelling takeaways.
For five years, “unprecedented” was associated with displays of narcissism and bluster. But President Joe Biden reset the word on his Inauguration Day.
Never before has a president called out white supremacy for what it is – wrong. Never before has a president needed to cite domestic terrorism as a principal threat to individual safety and nationhood. Never before has the world seen a 78-year-old American president, the oldest man ever elected to the office, share a stage with a 22-year-old Black woman, the youngest national poet laureate, to reignite a tired nation via verse.
Biden’s inauguration serves as a masterclass in speechwriting, crisis communications and storytelling, according to a group of Ragan Consulting Group professionals. From Biden’s existential theme of unity to the repetition of words, the address appealed to the public’s ears and sensibilities.
[RELATED: Learn more about the craft of speechwriting at the Speechwriters and Public Affairs Virtual Conference on March 4.]
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