Abstract
In this analysis of public speeches from four American presidents from the Republican Party, the ways in which those presidents discuss and position American defense activities and stances are examined to track the progression from the 1960s to the present. Presidents chosen were from one party who also presided over a period of protracted armed conflict or cold war. The addresses analyzed comprised public addresses to congress or the American people. The analysis groups recurring frames for each president. Some frames were more salient for certain presidents than for others. Other frames were common and consistently pervaded the presidents' remarks to congress and the public. America's struggle against a faceless enemy, American military might as a guarantor of peace, and the importance of the United States' commitments to its international partners were all prevailing frames which emerged in the analysis.
TopIntroduction
In July 2017, fewer than six months into his first year as president, in an ABC News and Washington Post poll, 70 percent of respondents indicated that they found President Donald Trump’s actions unpresidential (Langer, 2017). In August of 2017, Trump twice threatened to meet North Korea’s nuclear ambitions with “fire and fury” (Hennigan et al., 2017, para. 1), leading the Los Angeles times to proclaim that the president was using “bellicose rhetoric usually associated with the rulers in Pyongyang” (Hennigan et al., 2017, para. 1). Descriptors such as “unpresidential” and “bellicose” are strong, unequivocal terms by which to describe a world leader. Trump, however, is not alone in these dubious distinctions.
Trump’s Republican predecessor, George W. Bush garnered the same label (Blair, 2008; Napoleoni, 2003), even admitting himself that he had spoken too brashly about the war in Iraq (Blair, 2008). Other Republican presidents presiding over armed conflict have received the same treatment. Nixon was accused of playing a “death game” (Greenberg, 2004, p. 91) and was referred to as a “war criminal” (Greenberg, 2004, p. 91). Even Conservative hero Dwight D. Eisenhower does not escape the label of warmonger, although he is traditionally seen as a stabilizing and moderating presence in Republican foreign policy (Broadhead, 2009).
What, then, is the reality? What is the truth of how these presidents—four men of the same office, from the same party, from the same wartime circumstances—speak about war? Is the “fire and fury” rhetoric employed by Donald Trump the normal state of Republican defense discussions? This study examines the frames through which American presidents—specifically modern Republican presidents—discuss the country’s defense situation, and tracks the progression and divergence of those messages. The words and phrases reiterated throughout the whole of a four or eight-year presidency, and the macro-level frames presented across an enormous corpus of presidential addresses can illuminate a great deal about how a country—and in this case a single political party—portray its defense.
While studying presidential speech is an intrinsically political undertaking, this study was not intended to advocate or oppose policy positions, or lionize or vilify any president, party, or ideology. This study was designed to discover the frames that four American presidents from the same party use to talk about the way the United States conducts war, pursues peace, protects its territories and interests, and positions itself in matters of grave importance to the whole of humanity, during times of crisis. This study was also not designed to be an exposition of military history or the history of American foreign policy. While the subject matter is inherently historical, this study was intended to discover thematic patterns, should any exist.
It should also be noted that the idea of the nation’s chief executive taking his message directly to the people in an attempt to mold public opinion—and in some cases force the hand of Congress—is a relatively new one. Jeffery Tullis (1987) argues that the concentrated use of public rhetoric by a president is a novel phenomenon with its genesis in Theodore Roosevelt’s bully pulpit, with previous heads of state preferring to remit written addresses directly to the Congress. As the country has moved into the more modern Presidential era, we have seen many Presidents communicate to the public in increasingly direct and less formal ways, typically with a goal of winning public support or approval (Whittington, 1997). This application to war talk has been brought about by two major modern revolutions: the loss of a localized audience due to proliferation of global media and the delocalization of war due to technological advancement and weapons of mass destruction (Booth, 2005).
This analysis explores the ways that four modern presidents have laid their agendas on the altar of public opinion and seeks to answer the following research questions:
RQ1: Are there common frames which Republican presidents use to discuss the defense activities of the United States?
RQ2: Are there frames which Republican presidents use to discuss defense which are prevalent in the addresses of some presidents, but less salient in the addresses of other presidents?
RQ3: Is Donald Trump’s approach to defense discussions in his national addresses typical of modern wartime Republican presidents?
Key Terms in this Chapter
State of the Union Address: A speech the President of the United States delivers annually to the U.S. Congress and the American public to discuss the current state of the country’s affairs, both domestic and abroad. The speech usually takes place in January or February.
Thematic Framing: Using broad context or general themes regarding an issue to orient the audience to what the author or speaker believes is important to know about a topic or issue (e.g., discussing the national deficit to frame the overall standing of the economy).
Republican: A prominent political party in the United States, whose members typically lean more conservative regarding both economic and social policies, support a free-market approach to capitalism, and typically place greater emphasis on states’ rights (versus nationwide policies, laws, or restrictions).
Framing: Rhetorical frameworks employed by the speaker, which make certain aspects of the intended communication more salient than other aspects, and thus package information so that the audience will interpret it in a specific way.
Democrat: A prominent political party in the United States, whose members typically lean more liberal regarding both economic and social policies, support more progressive approaches to capitalism and taxation that intend to increase overall equality within a society, and typically place greater emphasis on national policies or laws that uphold civil rights.
Episodic Framing: Using specific events or stories as frames to orient the audience to what the author or speaker believes is important to know about a topic or issue (e.g., discussing the experiences of a individual soldier to frame the overall situation of an international conflict).
Rhetoric: A body of speech, generally intended to be persuasive.