Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech analysis The general interpretation of Ronald Reagan’s famous “evil empire” speech is one focusing on foreign policies. During this speech, he says to his audience which consisted primarily of evangelicals and clergymen, “I’m pleased to be here today with you who are keeping America great by keeping her good.” (Reagan, 1983) In fact, by breaking this statement down, we can see how this speech has much more to do with domestic policies rather than foreign ones. Reagan is playing on tacit assumptions in this statement by using the word good to help define great as well. The word great can give different meanings based on the context it’s used in. When Reagan uses the word, he doesn’t tell us whether he is referring to America's greatness in size, its degree of power and dominance, or to America's moral beliefs. Reagan uses the word good to imply to his audience their principles are superior, which affects how his audience …show more content…
It allows Reagan to free himself of argumentation about the righteousness of his actions towards certain topics that come later in the speech. For instance, when he brings up the “solution” to abortion, he didn’t have to bother explaining why or how abortion is bad since their understanding on the subject is already the correct one. Reagan also tells a story in the beginning of the speech which may seem as just a casual opener, but he does all this to ease his way into using the words good and great to define America and its people. In other words, he tells this story to create trust between the audience and himself by trying to prove to his audience he has the authority to speak on politicians and politics because he is able to view them as an outsider. This makes everything coming afterward in the speech much more
The United States has a long history of great leaders who, collectively, have possessed an even wider range of religious and political convictions. Perhaps not unexpectedly, their beliefs have often been in conflict with one another, both during coinciding eras, as well as over compared generations. The individual philosophies of William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, with regard to America’s roles in world affairs and foreign diplomacy; are both varied and conflicted. Despite those conflicts however, each leader has left his own legacy behind, in terms of how the U.S. continues to engage in world affairs today.
...er’s crew would not be in vain. Reagan chose not to use a teleprompter during his speech even though it was available at the time. Knowing this shows me that he wanted to address the American people on a more personal level. Even though he did have a manuscript I did not notice him look at it once. I felt his speech was truly heart felt and that he was very sincere in what was being said. He had great eye contact with the camera and you could see in his facial expressions that he was too deeply upset by the loss we as a nation endured. He succeeded in calming the nation, extending condolences all while effectively delivering a reassuring speech.
Reagan rose into power after years of turmoil and the American pride was dipping. About a decade before he became president, the war in Viet-Nam was winding down and the troops were returning home to negative demonstrations towards their duty. Then, during the Carter years, America transitioned into a détente policy, which meant that the United States would try to ease the tensions with the Soviet Union by not expanding the military, but not doing anything to acting ease the tension. The idea behind this became known as MAD, mutually assured destruction, (Hannaford) which meant that both the United States and Soviet Union would maintain and even number of nuclear weapons so that if one would fire, the other would be able to fire back equally. Reagan completely disagreed with this philosophy and created a whole new policy when he became president. The foreign policy he established was to create the Reagan Doctrine. According to a speech by Peter Hannaford, the Reagan Doctrine was that America would support democratic movements in any Communist country until that country could enjoy the fruits of freedom (Hannaford). This meant that the United States would help any country who wanted to leave the influence of the Soviet Union and create their own democracy. Also, to counter the Soviet Union and end the Cold War, a race between the United State and Soviet Union to create the best technology and become the world powerhouse, Reagan increased military spending. Ronald Reagan knew that the Soviet Union was unable to keep up the United States in military spending and still having enough funds to fund their own economy to keep it stable. Reagan used this knowledge to convince Congress to increase military budget to build up technology, causing the Soviets decide on what to do. The United States had the funds to continue, but the Soviet Union could not keep up. The breaking point
The Soviets could clearly see that when Reagan. said he wanted a "margin of safety." He meant that the United States should be. superior to the Russians. Moscow would not let this happen. They wanted equality.5 Reagan also believed in military power and respect for America abroad.
His first was to comfort the public, most people wanted to hear his take on the event since he was the president ergo making him the leader and the man to look up to in times of need. Regan did so by using gentle diction and even spoke in a very calming and relatable way. His second intention was to honor the men who lost their lives as well as their families. Reagan gave each one of the brave men recognition by mentioning each one of their names in the speech. This shows more respect rather than him just lumping them all together as the seven men, it shows he truly cares about and honors each and every individual man.
George Washington, the first president of the United States, had written a very important historical speech and document towards the end of his time in office. He had written the Farewell address which focused on helping America understand the importance of preserving unity, acknowledging the rise of political parties forming, strengthening religion and morality, and he stated his position on American foreign policy. He addressed these ideas with strong tone and used incredible amount of dictions that strengthens his tone as well as representing his appeal to ethos to a strong degree. However, today’s society seemed to forget Washington’s position on foreign policy and has created a new form of the policy. But nonetheless as time grew, change occurs. In today’s society Washington’s foreign policy would include many positive and negative manifestations, but it is still a speech and document that will always apply to America.
The general purpose of the speech was to lead the nation to advance against all the odds. The specific purpose of this speech was to communicate the agenda of the presidency as this was the first speech by the president. The first inaugural was important because the US nation was at a very difficult point, and this was due to the crash of banking and financial markets that occurred in 1929. This speech represents numerous excellent uses of rhetoric. The first thing realized by the president was that he mentioned the fact that people want to see him speaking honestly and he expressly made use of worlds i.e. sincerity and honesty.
There is no doubt that the when the President of the United States speaks everyone listens to what he has to say. This credibility makes the Ethos of Reagan’s Speech almost unsurpassable. As mentioned Reagan was scheduled to give a State of the Union Address to our country on the evening of January 28, 1986. Instead, he postponed it, because “the story of the day was tragedy. Here he wanted to give an upbeat speech about America moving ahead. It just didn’t fit. It seemed in congruous (Weinraub).” He showed the country that his priority is the emotions of his people by, for the first time in history, postponing on the State of the Union speech in order to discuss the current event. This strengthened the creditability of his argument immensely. He likened the astronauts to pioneers and stated in his speech that “They had a special grace, that special spirit that says, ‘Give me a challenge and I’ll meet it with joy.” With this he appeals to the spiritual side of his audience using the word grace to describe the fallen. Again, “The president concluded by attaching the nation’s sorrow to God’s grace (Ritter, 4).” He said “As they prepared for there journey and waved ...
I have decided to write my research paper on the topic of Ronald Reagan's Domestic and Foreign Affairs. The reason that I choose this topic was because I have always been personally interested in Ronald Reagan's time in office and the national crisis he had to deal with. Reagan was awesome when it came to foreign policy because he knew how to negotiate with foreign leaders and their countries to get what he wanted. There were several instances during his time in office that he had the chance to use his ability to get the country out of danger. Domestic Affairs is another part of Reagan's presidency that was very important. He was able to take the country, which seemed to be in an economic slump and turn their economic status around. The economic growth of the United States is still holding true today. There is only one question that I wanted to answer with this paper. Was Ronald Reagan an effective leader when it came to domestic and foreign affairs?
curb inflation. President Reagan was able to sign into law a tax cut in late
An Imperial Presidency Writers of the constitution intended for congress to be the most powerful branch of government. They invested in the president: the powers of the monarch, but subjected him to the democratic principles of accountability which was ensured by a complex system of parliamentary and judicial checks and balances. For over a century the US got along fine with a relatively weak president whose major role was simply to carry out the laws and policies made by congress, however, there has been erosion in this system. Presidential power only started to grow after the 19th century when the US set out on its path to empire.
After Ronald Reagan won the election of 1980, he was dedicated to restore the American power as he mentioned in his speech, “More than anything else, I want my candidacy to unify our country; to renew the American spirit and sense of purpose.”[ Ronald Reagan, “Acceptance Speech,” U.S. Political History (1973-2001): 2, accessed May 21, 2014, DOI:10.1093/acref/9780199794188.013.0191] By renewing the American spirit, he intended to strengthen American’s military power. The main purpose of him doing this was to contain the Soviet Union. In order to maintain his anti-communist policy through military forces, he needs to increase the military spending. This directly associated with the lives of U.S. Army. Since the military spending is raised, they could afford to use more expensive weapons, better clothing, and even better treatment in the military. In a way, Reagan’s dedication to press the Soviet Union...
As we approach the next Presidential election the topic of American foreign policy is once again in the spotlight. In this paper, I will examine four major objectives of U.S. foreign policy that have persisted throughout the twentieth century and will discuss the effect of each on our nation’s recent history, with particular focus on key leaders who espoused each objective at various times. In addition, I will relate the effects of American foreign policy objectives, with special attention to their impact on the American middle class. Most importantly, this paper will discuss America’s involvement in WWI, WWII, and the Cold War to the anticipated fulfillment of these objectives—democracy, manifest destiny, humanitarianism, and economic expansion.
This speech had a lot of positive sides to it, but one of the most important things was that it gave him a good look from the outside. The inaugural address was written to let the citizens of America know that they could change this country for the better. It assured all voters that they voted for a good cause and that their choice would not end badly. We need to repeat this so much that when we hear it again, we have it memorized and we have no doubt about it.
Throughout the speech, Elie Wiesel makes clear his appreciation for America and President Reagan: “We are grateful to this country, the greatest democracy in the world, the freest nation in the world, the moral Nation, the authority in the world.” Firstly, Wiesel wishes to appease the American public: He establishes that he is grateful for America’s humanity and compassion and uses an apposition to underscore America’s greatness. In other words, Wiesel concedes that America has done much, but he then continues with a refutation: “But, Mr. President, I wouldn’t be the person I am, and you wouldn’t respect me for what I am, if I were not to tell you also of the