American Civil Religion in the Era of Trump

In 1967, Robert Bellah argued that America’s “founding myth”, what he called American civil religion, helps bind society together by providing its citizens with a sense of origin, direction, and meaning. For evidence, primarily turned to the inaugural speeches presidents. This paper draws on semantic network analysis empirically examine addresses Presidents Trump Biden, looking for evidence some would consider aspects religion. As believe religion be no more than thinly veiled form nationalism, it also considers importance words associated nationalism. It finds both Biden employed language nationalism in their respective addresses, while found differences use nationalist discourse, did find figures prominently Biden’s address Trump’s.