With support from the University of Richmond

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How will Trump’s inaugural address compare with others?


Powerful speeches turn everyday people into wizards, casting a spell over an audience that bends their ears to the turn of a phrase. Public speakers tug on the heartstrings of a crowd to sway them toward an opinion.

Whether they’re pushing for action like Hillary Clinton or laying out their plans for a nation like 2016 President-elect Donald Trump, thought-provoking speeches work like magic. Public speakers simply replace incantations with anecdotes to connect with a crowd. Even Kanye West found a way to ignite the masses with his infamous VMA mic-snatch from Taylor Swift.

To make sense of this magic, we ran 100 of the top American speeches delivered by politicians and celebrities through a platform called TextStat, which compiles and aggregates text analysis from no less than 6 highly-regarded textual analysis methods. 

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