Rhetorical Analysis Of Ronald Reagan And The National Association Of Evangelicals

Ronald Reagan and the National Association of Evangelicals

Numerous politicians throughout the world will try and make very personal connections to “win” over their audience or try to make it seem like they are just like their audience. This is seen, especially, during their speeches. Ronald Reagan, definitely used his personal connections to his faith in his religion to his advantage, when he addressed the National Association of Evangelicals, in March of 1983. The speech is titled, “Evil Empire Speech” and Reagan talks about his evangelical faith, a lot. Ronald Reagan uses evangelicalism to connect with his audience in order to gain support for military expansion. He does this by joking around and sharing his personal experiences, he also

He begins his speech by thanking the audience for their prayers, he says, “Thank you for your prayers. Nancy and I have felt their presence many times in many ways” [3]. Right away, he shows gratitude, which may seem as peculiar, since he is the President of the United States. When talking about how he feels the presence of prayers, Reagan quotes Abraham Lincoln, “I think I understand how Abraham Lincoln felt when he said, ‘I’ve been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go’” [4]. He continues on with the speech by telling a joke. In paragraphs 6 and 7 Ronald Reagan tells a joke about how usually politicians don’t go to heaven. His joke also brought up a stereotype of politicians not being very religious in addition to Reagan showing that he has a sense of humor. Lastly, in his speech he continues with showing his gratitude to the crowd and ends his speech by giving a verse from the Bible and telling the audience, “God bless you,” [55]. However, making strong connections to his faith was not the only way to “win” over his

He uses quotes that could be interpreted as religious or have Protestant-like views. But this also could be seen as a very interesting “tactic” for his speech, since some of the people who he quoted are well-known Deists. Deists believe that there is a god, but they are usually not strong believers in religion as a whole; they also believe that their supernatural God doesn’t intervene within their lives. Deists beliefs are not similar to evangelical beliefs in the sense. Although, the people he quoted may not be religious as he is making them out to be, he uses their quotes to his advantage. “The American experiment in democracy rest on this insight. Its discovery was the great triumph of our Founding Fathers” [9]. Then he quotes William Penn, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Alexis de Tocqueville. In all of the quotes, they use words, such as “God”, “morality”, and “religion”, therefore Reagan was able to quote them and use this to better his speech. When he quotes Alexis de Tocqueville, however, this is where Reagan makes the best connection, since his slogan was, “let’s make America great”. “Alexis de Tocqueville put eloquently… ‘Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and genius of America.’” [10] Lastly, after using a Bible verse to end his speech, Reagan quotes Thomas Paine. “‘We have it within our power to begin the world