A return to the standard formulation of political speech at the highest levels of government seems to be the message I got from yesterday’s event.

Was this a victory speech? It didn’t feel like it. It felt more like a return to the familiar and comfortable structure and cadence of professional political speech.

From my point of view, there’s nothing really exemplary or exciting about either of these speeches. They were showcases of the traditional tropes and forms you’d expect to hear from the new President and VP elect. It was a “greatest hits” of these tropes and figures, reminding me of so many previous addresses by so many other candidates.

This doesn’t mean the speeches were “bad” – they were just expected. And I’m really feeling the lag from four years of the irony that Trump provided: Every Presidential-level address you’d expect to be totally crazy, unhinged, and well – all over the place.

Novelty is a dangerous thing in speech as it can train the audience to always be looking for that novel move or content instead of what you might want them to do, and also it creates a short memory for your addresses. For Trump this works out great as he has very little in terms of policy development to offer. For Biden, novelty would be a huge threat to his policy initiatives. Harris too.

Returning to the comfort of bland political speech probably felt comfortable to most who watched and heard the speeches. It felt like there were again guideposts or guardrails in national politics. These speeches could be classified as a “return to normalcy” which might be something critics would say is totally called for. It’s also on brand for speeches that are supposedly victory speeches (although these did not feel like victory speeches for a lot of reasons in the context).

Here are the things that the speeches did that I thought were valuable:

1. Provided a sense of comfort in the articulation of a return to “normalcy” in the way they were structured, delivered, and the combination of delicious flavors we haven’t had in a while (imagine returning to grandma’s after a long absence).
2. Marked the exigency of the ballot counting being over and that the result was official and legitimate (necessary given the floating arguments about corruption without anchor point).
3. Marked the historic moment of a non-white woman about to occupy the office of Vice President. What does this mean? What will it mean? This is in order in terms of “victory” speeches (perhaps the most victory moment there) in terms of epideictic rhetoric, the only irony in the speech is that this radical historical moment was handled with very traditional, Aristotelian gloves even in terms of public address! Again not a flaw, but something to notice.

Here are the concerns I have about the speeches:

1. Reliance on the trope that we need to come together as a nation is dangerous; it was aimed at a very different America. This argument needs to alter to consider: Social media, obsession with facts as the only/ultimate arbiter of political discourse, 24 hour for-profit cable news that is partisan, and the coronavirus. Why was this not a theme of examination for both speeches? Dangerous as it address nobody except the blind Biden faithful (who will read it as “yes we won, you have to accept it” – coming together for them is nothing short of agreement). When old tropes come back around they need to be introduced or at least not show up in their 90s haircut like last night.
2. No suggestions on how to rhetorically navigate the upcoming litigation. Perhaps ignorance is not just bliss, but a good strategy – if these cases are illegitimate, should it appear in a speech? This is a great question. In my mind, ignoring the upcoming challenges might not have been smart. What would have been great here would have been a reference to “situations” where “devisive” forces might try to discredit the “accomplishment” that we “all share tonight.” Something like that would have been all that was needed, but ignoring the speculative utterances of the Trump campaign in totality just legitimizes the claim of theft from people who are sympathetic to the idea.
3. Related to this is that there’s a looming run-off election in Georgia that the upcoming Biden administration has a lot riding on. I wonder why there were not attempts to connect yesterday’s speeches about the future direction of the nation, the transformative spirit of the future, and the lofty goals and dreams of Americans in the same terms that the Georgia race for Senate was couched. They are obviously capable of this: Recall the many specific references to fracking in both the VP debate and Presidential debates. That’s too specific for my tastes for this need, but still, why not angle it a bit more? Contextualize this win in the terms of the changes we all feel that are happening to us (and also, because of us, but at the same time are inevitable no matter what we do – it’s a nice twist!).

I guess now that I’ve typed it all out, it seems to me that the speeches yesterday were a rhetorical success? I really don’t feel that way. I think the most important thing that will have to be overcome is the lack of Trumps dynamic style and clipped mode of public address, which people have come to associate with a President who is active and involved, and most importantly not a professional politician. It’s a significant challenge, and I’m pretty sure Biden and Harris will have several good ways of addressing this. But for the faithful and the haters, there’s little that could be done to change either opinion on them. That might be the biggest challenge yet: How to recover the value of changing up one’s mind.