The existential threat myth in U.S. inaugural discourse: Metaphors of negative fascination in ideological myth-making

This article explores how metaphors of negative fascination contribute to the construction of the myth of ‘existential threat’ in American inaugural presidential discourse. Drawing on two inaugural speeches from presidents with divergent ideological positions, the study identifies recurring mythologems such as collective victimhood and enemy, crisis and salvation, ‘nation in danger’, a battle for national values, and the messianic defender. These mythologems are framed through emotionally charged narratives of trauma, defense, and salvation. Applying Kövecses model of conceptual metaphor analysis and Lakoff’s typology of metaphors, the study reveals how structural and ontological metaphors enable the transfer of affective and cognitive schemas from the physical domain to abstract political concepts like the economy, political ideas, morality, or statehood. Conceptual metaphor analysis revealed the deployment of source domains such as War, Disease, Death, and Animal to conceptualize target domains like Social Problems, Industrial Decline, Dangerous Ideas, and Nation/State. The fascination effect of these metaphors is intensified through stylistic devices – anaphora, evaluative epithets, emotionally marked lexicon – which enhance affective resonance and reinforce emotional polarization. By introducing the term Metaphors of Negative Fascination, the article highlights the attention-grabbing power of metaphors associated with fear, anxiety, and danger, and their ritual-identification role in constructing the dichotomy of ‘us versus them.’ The analysis demonstrates that Metaphors of Negative Fascination are central to the naturalization of polarized worldviews and the mobilization of collective identity through metaphorically structured political myths.