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Ronald Reagan Tear Down That Wall Rhetorical Devices

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On June 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan arrived in West Berlin to speak to the people of West Germany at the Brandenburg Gate, with the intent of gathering support for democracy and to oppose the Berlin Wall along with the Soviet Government behind it. Reagan used several rhetorical strategies such as; rationality, using examples, imagery, and compare and contrast, to win the support of all who listened, including the Soviet leaders whom Reagan was hoping to persuade. Berlin was an incredible humanitarian and diplomatic crisis across the world because, the Eastern side of Berlin was impoverished, famined, and the people who lived there had to face cruel leadership and heinous punishment for the littles things, because they were under Soviet rule. This is why President Reagan travelled to Berlin, because he wanted to persuade the people of Berlin to resist the Soviet’s cruelty and to persuade the Soviets to “Tear down that wall!”. Reagan first uses rationality to …show more content…

From 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled.”(Reagan). Reagan quotes specific events that occurred in the Western, more prosperous side of Germany so that he can contrast it to the unfortunate Eastern side which is under Soviet rule, he does this because this provides yet more evidence to support his purpose of persuading people to believe that communism does not work and that the USSR is backwards and evil. This works because he states a specific example of progress made in a certain area that the USSR is struggling greatly in, but because it is in West Germany/Berlin, this hits more close to home for the people Reagan is trying to persuade because the people who are suffering/causing the suffering are a mere hundred feet to the East on the other side of the

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