Generic Criticism: The generic model of rhetorical criticism allows us to understand Donald Trump’s 2025 Inaugural Address not merely as a political speech, but as a deliberate disruption of the presidential inaugural genre. By comparing Trump’s address with more traditional inaugurals like Joe Biden’s (2021) and Ronald Reagan’s (1981), the generic model reveals how Trump redefines presidential ethos, rejects ceremonial norms, and transforms the inaugural into a populist and partisan performance, more indicative of a campaign rally than anything else.

Different instances throughout Donald Trump's speech highlight these divergences from the format presented by the Inaugural address, such instances are tagged as #Generic

Trump, instead of welcoming the larger global audience to his American golden age, implements quite the opposite approach- he warns the international scene and subvert's his viewers feeling of being taken advantage of. By shrouding both foreign allies and adversaries in an antagonistic light, Trump presents himself as the defender of his people from these parasitic foreces which are taking advantage of their country and therefore their values. This illustrates that Trump's intention here is to establish some sort of credible position as a vocalizer of the concerns within his party while stirring their feelings of marginalization. This diverges from traditional presidential rhetor on such a moment, which instead asserts peace and unity with the world and aims itself at qualling domestic fears regarding international tensions of the time.

Politico narrates,<br /> "as Most new presidents offer grace notes to the wider world. In his 1949 inaugural address, President Harry Truman offered a promise of significant material aid to a war-ravaged international community. Trump offered a return to the idea of “Manifest destiny” from the 19th century, vowed to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” and — at least rhetorically — semi-declared war with Panama over the Panama Canal. "

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/20/trump-inaugural-address-analysis-00199361

In his Inaugural address, Joe Biden asks his audience and the American people, to not let their worries and economic struggles let them turn against each other. He sympathizes with all his constituents and urges against factions. (13:00)

Trump's scapegoating of illegal immigrants, which makes its way into his address stands in stark opposition to these sentiments. Biden is adhering to the genre of the Inaugural address where Trump is not.

His subversion hints that Trump's rhetorical strategy is one which is aimed at creating division, not unity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlbyOeMCL0g

In the following section of the speech, Trump dives into his series of executive orders and controversial as well as polarized policy positions, which he will be stating effectively. Though this context is not present here these policies are argued by many political analysts as directly enabling the marginalization of selected groups consisting of demographics, which have been deemed as "un-American". This controversial and divisive listing of policy starkly contrasts from the task, presented by an Inaugural Address. While certain policy positions and general political goals or ambitions are usually emphasized by past presidents in their inaugural speeches, such occurrences do not tend to wander into territories concerning directly polarizing policy.

In his dissertation "Make the Inaugural Great Again... Daniel Dickerson presents an analysis on Trump's rhetoric as a diverges from presidential president to illicit fantasy – themes and ideological narratives of nationalism and us versus them. He presents President Obama's inauguration speech as an example which adheres to the format that Trump's subverts.

"In President Obama’s inaugural addresses, many historical themes as used by past presidents were present. In fact, Obama chose to take a route derived in humility and theology (Frank, 2011). His inaugural responded to a recurring rhetorical situation of the expectations of presidential inaugurals (Frank, 2011). The president should express to the members of the audience that they have a common identity: their humanity (Ericson,1997). Further, Ericson (1997) explained, the people who voted for the president want to know he is working for them, and Obama met this particular exigence in his inaugural address. Understanding the history of the presidential inaugural is essential to grasp the importance of this study within rhetorical studies, and the communication discipline."

https://www.proquest.com/openview/9ea813c915501712b974956aef59070c/1?cbl=18750&diss=y&pq-origsite=gscholar

Trump here is referring to the democratic party, specifically Biden's administration, saying that he will overturn Biden era policy and restore his base's political agenda. This is incredibly divergent from formats provided by previous Inaugural addresses.

As narrated by Politico,

"For instance, most new presidents begin by putting the partisan struggle of the past election behind them. “We are all Republicans; we serve all Federalists,” Thomas Jefferson said a few months after the vicious election of 1800. “We observe today not a victory of party, but a celebration of freedom,” John F. Kennedy said in 1961. In 1989, George Bush literally held his hand out to the Democratic speaker of the House in his appeal for bipartisanship."

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/20/trump-inaugural-address-analysis-00199361

Trump's citing of institutional failure in this section plays many roles in addition to invoking pathos and establishing ethos.

Generic Criticism: It shows us further how Trump is guiding his speech under different motivations as that of his predecessors by effectively undermining popular belief in America and its democratic systems as opposed to emboldening the people in their support and appreciation. Such an effect in his speech demonstrate that his purposes here are not to satisfy the criteria of the inaugural address, but rather his own political motivations.

This contrasts directly from Regan in his Inaugural address who literally initiates his speech by asserting his faith in the democratic process and highlight the sanctity and legacy of the American peaceful transition of power.

In the context of Regan's speech, it can be seen that Trump chooses to undermine faith in American democratic institution achieve a catastrophic depiction. This is perhaps a central part of his rhetorical strategy as it allows for the efficacy of his speech when he later diagnoses the failures listed here, with strong, assertive policy positions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpPt7xGx4Xo

Generic Criticism: This line marks a significant departure from the traditional inaugural genre, which typically opens with unifying affirmations and ceremonial reverence for American institutions. Instead of enacting continuity and civic confidence—as we see in Biden’s 2021 inaugural (“Democracy has prevailed”)—Trump opens by casting the government as a failed and suspect entity. This violates a core generic convention: inaugurals traditionally reaffirm the legitimacy of the republic even in times of transition. Trump’s framing instead performs a kind of rhetorical inversion, treating the occasion not as a transitioning of power but as a "day of reckoning". The genre of the inaugural is thus subverted into a platform for populist grievance, more reminiscent of a campaign rally than a ceremonial oath of office.

When asked about the departure of Trump's remarks from pre-existing expectations based on presidential precedent, John M. Murphy, a professor of communication at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies the history of American public address and political rhetoric responds as follows:

"Was there anything striking about Trump’s second address and the rhetorical devices he used when referring to his policy agenda, the Congress and his definition of the U.S. and its standing in the world order?

First, President Trump used dark, divisive campaign rhetoric rather than the usual unifying, uplifting words that characterize normal inaugurals.

Second, an inaugural address usually offers only general principles, rather than specific policy, in order to unify the country behind new leadership. Trump listed a long series of bitterly contested executive orders that again divided the nation.

Inaugural addresses usually emphasize the humility of the new president as they face the profound responsibilities of the office. George Washington acknowledged “his own deficiencies” and nearly all presidents place themselves under God and rely on the help of the people.

Trump does not do so. In fact, he says he was “saved by God” to make America great again. His arrogance does not indicate he will respect constitutional limits."

https://las.illinois.edu/news/2025-01-24/how-did-president-trumps-inaugural-address-stack-previous-speeches

Murphy's remarks, given his position as a scholar of political rhetoric, illustrates that even the academic subdomain of American politics is continuing to adjust to the non-traditional themes in Trump's address.

Ideological Criticism: By stating that “our government confronts a crisis of trust,” Trump invokes deep anti-establishment sentiment, a defining feature of his ideological appeal. This rhetoric casts suspicion not just on a particular party or administration, but on the very structure of American governance, framing it as inherently broken.

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But the industry can change what they call it... just like it's already changed - from "master" to "main" - from "blacklist" to "blocklist" - and so on

Kozlov, M. (2022). Why scientists are racing to develop more COVID antivirals. Nature, 601(7894), 496–496. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00112-8

Page to order Wetlab ware from France, shipping within one day.

1. Ironic that this reference is ostensibly about the usage of "first-class citizen" in society, yet it links to a seemingly-mismatched (by name only, that is) article, entitled "second-class citizen".

2. Ironic that the first-class (unqualified) article is about the figurative meaning of "citizen" used in computer science, and that the page describing first-class and second-class status of the more literal citizens in society is relegated to what I kind of think is a second-class position in the encyclopedia (because it takes the #2 position numerically, even though it is (at least as is implied in this reference) also about first-class citizens (though the word "first-class" does not appear a single time in that article, so maybe this reference is the one that is more ironic/incorrect).

rare to see "internet" used to mean an internetwork in the general sense

Interesting how a word (pandemic) that literally means "all people" has ended up (only) meaning a disease that effects all people. Yet nowhere in the word does it say anything about a disease.

I don't think the "but more strictly" part is strictly accurate.

Wikipedia authors confirm what I already believed to be true: that the general sense of the word is just as valid/extant/used/common as the sense that is specific to biology:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_(general) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_(biology)

"linked data" can and should be a very general term referring to any structured data that is interlinked/interconnected.

It looks like most of this article describes it in that general sense, but sometimes it talks about URIs and such as if they are a necessary attribute of linked data, when that would only apply to Web-connected linked data. What about, for example, linked data that links to each other through some other convention such as just a "type" and "ID"? Maybe that shouldn't be considered linked data if it is too locally scoped? But that topic and distinction should be explored/discussed further...

I love its application to web technologies, but I wish there were a distinct term for that application ("linked web data"?) so it could be clearer from reading the word whether you meant general case or not. May not be a problem in practice. We shall see.

Granted/hopefully most use of linked data is in the context of the Web, so that the links are universal / globally scoped, etc.

generic-sounding term may be interpreted as something more specific than intended: I want to be able to use "data interchange" in the most general sense. But if people interpret it to mean this specific standard/protocol/whatever, I may be misunderstood.

The definition given here

is the concept of businesses electronically communicating information that was traditionally communicated on paper, such as purchase orders and invoices.

limits it to things that were previously communicated on paper. But what about things for which paper was never used, like the interchange of consent and consent receipts for GDPR/privacy law compliance, etc.?

The term should be allowed to be used just as well for newer technologies/processes that had no previous roots in paper technologies.

Not just for references to DOM elements…