Carson Burch ’27 is a government major from Chesapeake, Virginia. He is a member of the History Club, Public Policy Club, Lutheran Students’ Association and Theodore Roosevelt Society. Outside of his studies and social life, he enjoys reading about historical and current events in addition to dinosaurs.
The views expressed in the article are the author’s own.
Whenever I hear Donald Trump talk on TV, one thought that comes to me is, “How did we get here?”
This might be subjective, but I would argue the overall quality of political oratory in America has declined over the last decade or so. At the minimum, it has become increasingly partisan, and most Americans would agree with my assessment that it has become highly toxic. I think Trump is an exemplar of this, given how many of his public appearances take the form of rambling about a variety of topics, with numerous petty insults thrown in and little coherent organization, but the issue is bigger than just him — I don’t think anyone would defend Joe Biden as being a particularly great orator, either.
While not every president has been charismatic, there was a time when the successful practice of oratory got men nominated. James Garfield was chosen as the Republican standard-bearer in 1880 solely due to a speech he gave in support of another candidate, and William Jennings Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech propelled him to such a status within the Democratic Party that he was nominated for president three separate times despite never winning once. This continued until very recently: Ronald Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” earned him the attention of the then-burgeoning conservative movement as the speech articulated the small-government values of Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign better than the Arizona senator himself. Even as late as 2004, Barack Obama’s keynote Democratic National Convention speech on behalf of John Kerry propelled him to national attention, helping set the stage for his successful White House bid in 2008.
In 2014, claims that presidents now spoke at a middle school level made the rounds in the media, but this study was based on a method which relied on the number of syllables. This is clearly not the sole measure of what makes a speech brilliant: simple words can be used to communicate ideas to great effect. Despite that, I cannot think of any speech given since around that time which I regard as inspiring, regardless of my views on the content.
Why has this trend occurred? Part of it is that brilliant orators of the kind I mentioned are once-in-a-generation figures. After all, not everyone can come up with something as brilliant as the “Gettysburg Address.” However, I don’t think this is a sufficient answer in and of itself.
One factor which the articles mentioned above give is the rise of soundbite culture, or the practice of including short excerpts of remarks in media publications. In the past, speeches were read in newspapers, requiring the reader to be literate to consume them. Then the 20th century introduced TV news, which played only short clips of speeches, and social media platforms, such as TikTok, have served as an evolution of this. Politicians no longer need to give even coherent speeches, as most voters will only interact with Reels lasting at most a minute.
While that might explain the decline in flowery language and even quality, I do not find it to be a full explanation. I doubt anyone would argue that John F. Kennedy’s “We Choose to Go to the Moon” speech was inarticulate, and TV was already a well-established medium of communication by 1962. A bigger part of it would probably be increased cynicism. Citizens today want leaders who aren’t just “career politicians.” I have heard first-hand from relatives that they see previous leaders who were more polished, such as Obama, as “liars” who used such grandiosity to distract from it. By contrast, Trump’s superlative-slathered, off-the-cuff riffs are distinct from anything a politician would say in a prepared stump speech and therefore project as more authentic. Add that to partisanship which makes standards lower and enables politicians to lambast the other side, rather than appeal to higher principles, and you get what we have now.
Why does the decline of oratory even matter? Just because a politician can give a good speech doesn’t mean they’re qualified for high office. However, I do think good oratory matters for one simple reason: It communicates things which need to be said.
All presidents need to be able to rally support for their agenda, and the truly great ones are those who inspire Americans when they need to be called upon to make sacrifices or rise to a hard occasion. This power is essential in the event of an international crisis where a leader needs to rally American support for a greater cause they may otherwise be skeptical of, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt did when he called for Americans to give aid to the Allies in the days leading up to the Pearl Harbor attack. Trump could not rise to such an occasion; even if he recognized the need to persuade Americans to make great sacrifices, his incoherent, insult-filled rambles would be unable to get the job done, as he’d make the cause about himself and undermine any attempt to promote national unity in the process.
I don’t want to encourage people to vote for a candidate in the upcoming 2028 primaries solely because of their media appearances, but I do think we should expect and want more from oratory than we are currently getting. Rhetoric is a form of art when done properly, and it has been recognized as a vital one in self-governing societies since classical antiquity. Let us all hope that, regardless of our politics, we can find spokespeople who represent our views with eloquence in the next election.
