Presidential Rhetoric Essay

American politics and foreign policy has constantly been undergoing change and has always represented differing views on what best suits the United States of America’s national interests. These certain policy rifts surrounding what sort of foreign policy best compliments Americas national interest can be clearly seen in the earliest stages of the United States of America with the stark differences in political ideas of Andrew Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson and there opposing parties, set up following George Washington 's death. These differences of opinion and policy are what contribute to a functioning and healthy democracy, however they can and do cause instability and inconsistency when it comes to Americas foreign policy.
This essay sets

One of Tulis’ main points, in his book ‘the Rhetorical Presidency’ was that presidents of the 20th Century, starting with Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, began to directly address the public on certain policy. As highlighted by Mercieca and Vaughn, “Tulis argued that, beginning with the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Twentieth Century presidents began regularly attempting to circumvent the constitutional order by going over the heads of members of Congress and speaking about policy issues directly to the mass public.” Tulis outlined three stages of historical presidential rhetoric; the Old Way; which is typified by traditional statesmanship and corresponds with rhetoric being addressed to Congress, the Middle Way; which marks a hybrid between internal and external appeals on important matters; and the New Way which primarily began with Woodrow Wilson during World War 1. The New Way, as labelled by Tulis, refers to a presidential style that dispenses traditional statecraft and instead regularly engages the public. President Wilson utilised this style successfully by employing two types of rhetoric; the policy speech and the visionary speech. Tulis further argued that presidents began to believe that speaking directly to the people would allow them to sell presidential agendas to the public with the

Bush’s presidency was initially not underpinned by crusading tendencies, however the catalyst that shifted his administration into crusading gear was the September 11 attacks. Following the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, “the George W. Bush administration shifted from an often-restrained posture to an unrestrained fast-thinking principled crusade.” (Widmaier, 2015) The terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001 led the world into a new and frightening epoch of global uncertainty and in times of crisis like these, intensive rhetorical campaigns are launched to motivate and inform the public of the governments stance (Mral, 2004). George W. Bush’s rhetorical campaign and his significant change to an unrestrained crusading posture is most clearly seen in his address before a joint Session of the congress on September 20. Using heavy handed rhetoric, Bush successfully plays on the attitudes and feelings circulating around America at the time by declaring his war on terrorism. He states; “We will direct every resource at our command—every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war—to the disruption and to the defeat of the global terror network.” He further outlines Americas need to pursue and crusade for democracy around the globe; “As long as the United States of America is determined and strong, this will not be an age of