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President Biden spoke for about 21 minutes. In my opinion, his speech was primarily honorable in its message and content. He did use some dramatic language such as “winter of peril,” “cry for survival (from the planet),” and “heal a broken land [America],” but this was not deemed sufficient to call these out as specific examples of dishonorable speech. He also used some vague terms that he did not define precisely, such as “unity.” This made it difficult to analyze if there was dishonor in his statements involving those words.

There were some instances in which President Biden offered opinion as fact, such as, “…we have much to do in this winter of peril and significant possibilities. Much to repair, much to restore, much to heal, much to build, and much to gain.” The word “much” involves opinion, since what one person thinks of as “much” may not be what another person does. However, since this is a political speech, and some expression of opinion by the candidate could reasonably be considered more as a call-to-action than just a statement, I do not call out these instances as dishonorable.

I believe the biggest issue with the speech, in terms of honorability, was that, in general, it may have been overstating a problem or its level of risk, thus promoting fear and anger. With terms such as “broken land” and “uncivil war” (as between red and blue states), it offers opinion as fact, and, in my opinion, promotes a narrative of division and widespread uncivil discourse that may not be representative of most Americans. It may be that the media and social media amplify uncivil discourse, and thus bias our perceived levels of division. In this speech, President Biden generally talked about unity, which I believe is a good thing (at least in how I define unity below), but if he’s overstating the level of division to begin with, he’s, in a way, propagating it. This is because, by encouraging us to believe there’s currently more division than there is, we’ll tend to focus on division rather than what unites us. Division by way of uncivil discourse and violence is damaging, but I believe it’s most honorable to be precise and accurate in calling it out and representing its level of damages. Terms like “broken land” and “uncivil war” don’t do this.

In addition, these specific lines contain dishonorable speech, in my opinion, as outlined below:

“Here we stand, just days after a riotous mob thought they could use violence to silence the will of the people, to stop the work of our democracy, to drive us from this sacred ground. It did not happen, it will never happen, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.” Dishonorable speech categories: #1 (level 2) name calling/insults (“mob”); #12 (level 1) declaring bad intent (“thought they could use violence to…”); #11 misrepresenting reality (future prediction – “it will never happen”).  Suggested more honorable version: Here we stand, just days after a group of people used violence to temporarily stop the work of Congress to certify the election results. Our democracy was not stopped, and I believe we must work to make sure it never is – not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

“Without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only chaos. This is our moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.” Dishonorable speech categories: #11 misrepresenting reality (exaggeration/black and white fallacy – “no” and “only”); #13 offering opinion as fact. Suggested more honorable version: Without unity, that is, the great majority of people united in upholding basic principles of humanity such as being able to disagree without resorting to violence, I believe peace is much more difficult to achieve, as is progress. In my opinion, this is a moment of challenge, and unity is the path forward.