{"id":3551,"date":"2025-12-18T13:38:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T21:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/magazine\/?p=3551"},"modified":"2026-01-23T10:21:38","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:21:38","slug":"the-rhetoric-of-kinship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/magazine\/the-rhetoric-of-kinship\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rhetoric of Kinship: Why Politicians Talk About Family"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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The Rhetoric of Kinship: Why Politicians Talk About Family<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n
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\n\n \n Across eras and ideologies, leaders have used family as a potent political metaphor to define loyalty, belonging \u2014 even nationhood itself.\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n By<\/span>Susan Bell<\/a><\/strong>\n \n December 18, 2025<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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We\u2019ve all heard it \u2014 from history teachers celebrating America\u2019s Founding Fathers to wartime movies invoking the Nazi \u201cFatherland\u201d to politicians on the evening news pledging to defend \u201cfamily values.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War? World War I British recruitment poster. (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Across cultures and centuries, leaders have turned to family as a powerful and enduring political metaphor. From the earliest monarchies to today\u2019s polarized political landscape, the language of kinship remains very much alive. We can trace it across cultures from \u201cMother Russia\u201d to the affectionate nickname \u201cTonton\u201d (uncle) given to France\u2019s former president Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand to the widely used honorific \u201cBaba\u201d (father), used to address respected leaders in parts of the Middle East and Africa.<\/p>\n

What makes this metaphor so potent and enduring, says Robert Shrum<\/a>, director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future<\/a>, is not just its familiarity but its flexibility. \u201cUsing family as metaphor in political rhetoric can have many different layers of meaning,\u201d says Shrum, Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics and professor of the practice of political science<\/a>. \u201cIt can be malevolent and exclusionary, or inspiring and inclusive.\u201d<\/p>\n

He offers two stark examples. \u201cThink about the Nazis and the phrase \u2018Fatherland,\u2019 which argued that to be a true German, you had to be \u2018of the blood and the soil.\u2019 Then, in contrast, recall Sen. Robert F. Kennedy\u2019s Day of Affirmation speech in South Africa: \u2018Those who live with us are our brothers. \u2026 They seek, as we do, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea that Kennedy expresses here \u201cis a very inclusive one that sees the family as the family of humankind\u201d Shrum says.<\/p>\n

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Thanks to dear Stalin for a happy childhood! 1936 Soviet propaganda poster. (Image Source: Alamy.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When Kinship Serves Power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Democracies and autocracies alike draw on the language of family \u2014 but for very different ends.<\/p>\n

Authoritarians such as Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un frame family as a way to sanctify nationalism, casting their nations as sacred bloodlines that must be defended at all costs and employing family-based rhetoric as a tool to exclude and to justify aggression. Democracies, in contrast, often invoke Founding Fathers or even Founding Mothers to honor shared creation and collective belonging.<\/p>\n

From America\u2019s earliest days, family metaphors that intertwine God and country have been central to political rhetoric \u2014 especially on the conservative right \u2014 legitimizing authority and appealing to emotional unity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe term \u2018Mother Russia,\u2019\u201d Shrum notes, \u201cis a call to Imperial Russia \u2014 an invitation to see the nation as sacred in and of itself, justified in doing whatever it wants for its own glory, including the belief that Ukraine must belong to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Invoking family in politics has long served to forge identity, justify power and mobilize citizens \u2014 for better or worse. \u201cIt can be deployed to advance our best ideals,\u201d Shrum adds, \u201cor to appeal to the darker impulses of the human spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Former North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il appear surrounded by children on a 2010 propaganda poster. (Image Source: Alamy.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An Enduring Metaphor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why is the language of family such a persistent and powerful force across political divides? Because it works.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>Family is our most intimate and emotional bond,\u201d says Steve Ross<\/a>, Dean\u2019s Professor of History<\/a>. \u201cIt implies trust, loyalty and identity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shrum agrees, arguing that its universal relevance and resonance give the metaphor exceptional power. \u201cFamily is central to everyone\u2019s life,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople think not just with their heads but with their hearts. Even if someone never marries or has children, they were still born into a family. It\u2019s no surprise that the theme appears so often in political rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2026 a family metaphor can either enrich and lift our vision or pollute and sour our view of the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n The Medieval Roots of \u201cFamily Values\u201d\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n
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When Kinship Becomes Dangerous<\/strong><\/p>\n

The same language that binds can also divide. Family metaphors become perilous when they draw lines between who belongs \u2014 and who doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Shrum describes the fact that family metaphors in political rhetoric are often used as exclusionary or \u201cothering\u201d tactics as \u201ca misuse of the metaphor\u201d \u2014 one that persists through history.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s happening today with Putin. It went on 80 years ago with the Nazis,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a choice, not an inevitability. Like all language, a family metaphor can either enrich and lift our vision or pollute and sour our view of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such rhetoric also naturalizes political authority, making power seem inherited rather than earned. Some of these tropes are very old \u2014 Mother Russia, the Fatherland \u2014 so politicians turn to them instinctively, Shrum notes.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolitical leaders have often been cast as father figures \u2014 protective yet disciplinary, channeling hierarchies of obedience, duty and dependence,\u201d says Ross, Distinguished Professor of History and author of Hitler in Los Angeles<\/em><\/a>. \u201cMany still frame themselves as parental figures, while their citizens are cast as obedient children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the same imagery can express a radically different ideal. \u201cIn other cases,\u201d Shrum says, \u201cfamily metaphors echo the parable of the Good Samaritan \u2014 that all of us are brothers and sisters, bound by an obligation to one another. That\u2019s a call to our best selves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a huge difference,\u201d he adds, \u201cbetween believing America is an idea that welcomes anyone who shares its values, and insisting it is primarily \u2014 or even exclusively \u2014 simply a place and that it belongs only to those born here.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Nazi Party 1930s propaganda poster portraying an Aryan family. (Image Source: Alamy.)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Expanding the Circle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shrum points to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Presidents John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama as leaders who spoke of the human family, not just the American one. But, he adds, inclusive rhetoric isn\u2019t confined to the political left.<\/p>\n

\u201cRonald Reagan gave a terrific speech at the end of his presidency about immigrants enriching America,\u201d Shrum recalls, \u201cechoing the idea long voiced by JFK, George McGovern and others that America is an idea, not just a place.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also cites George W. Bush\u2019s PEPFAR initiative, that saved millions of lives in Africa by providing medicine to fight AIDS, as another act of global kinship.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real question,\u201d Shrum says, \u201cis how broadly we draw the circle. Are we talking about the human family or just my<\/em> family? White American families or all American families? It all comes down to how people choose to define what family means.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family values, he adds, can be used to exclude those deemed \u201cillegitimate\u201d or to promote empathy and respect for difference.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t discourage a political candidate from using family metaphors just because they\u2019re often associated with the right,\u201d says Shrum, a veteran Democratic consultant. \u201cThat language should never be conceded. All politicians try to reach people\u2019s emotions, not just their brains.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Family We Choose<\/strong><\/p>\n

Used wisely, family rhetoric can be a powerful call to empathy and to a kind of caring that reaches beyond the garden gate. \u201cI think of Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s words,\u201d Shrum says. \u201cThe beauty of genuine brotherhood and peace is more precious than diamonds or silver or gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he also laments how cynicism often dulls that moral language. \u201cPeople are now very skeptical of politicians,\u201d he says. \u201cIn my experience, some leaders genuinely use family rhetoric because they really do want to build a more perfect union, a better democracy, a better society. We shouldn\u2019t be wary of that \u2014 we should wish for more of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, the family metaphor endures because it speaks to both our frailty and our hope. When used with care, it reminds us that belonging isn\u2019t something we\u2019re born into, it\u2019s a choice we make and a bond we build together \u2014 one ideally forged in empathy and compassion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\n USC Dornsife Magazine\n <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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Fall 2025 \/ Winter 2026<\/h2>\n

The Family Issue<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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