Rhetorical Democracy: An Examination of the Presidential Inaugural Addresses

Despite the fact that there is nothing in the Constitution requiring it, nor prescribed by any other federal law, the President\u27s delivery of an inaugural address has become a de facto requirement of the official Presidential inauguration. The Presidential inaugural address is an anticipated feature of all inaugural ceremonies because it is where the newly elected president outlines, among other things, his perspective on the manner, conduct and overall form of the American government. Within this outline, the rhetoric utilized by the President during inaugural addresses shapes the way in which the American people understand our system of government on both a theoretical and functional level. This research examines the utilization of the term “democracy” in presidential inaugural speeches as a rhetorical device and the impacts of this terminology upon conceptions of American governance. This rhetorical analysis provides a lens to view the changing dynamics of American political thought

LBJ, the Rhetoric of Transcendence, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 was the result of a complex convergence of presidential public persuasion in a context of increasing domestic violence associated with a series of summer disturbances and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Analysis of Lyndon Johnson\u27s public discourse supporting the 1968 Civil Rights Act reveals that rhetorical transcendence was employed as a recurrent strategy in attempts to pass legislation

The Presidents Skowronek Forgot: How Preemptive Presidents Follow Similar Paths in Campaigns, Domestic Policy, and Foreign Policy As Shown Through Eisenhower and Clinton

I wrote this paper while on the political science department study group in Washington, D.C. The inspiration for this paper came from two sources. The first was Stephen Skowronek\u27s book, The Politics Presidents Make, in which he divides all of the Presidents into four categories: Reconstructionists (Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR), Orthodox Innovators/Articulators (Monroe, Polk, LBJ, etc.), Disjunctive Presidents (Hoover, Carter, etc.), and Preemptive Presidents (Nixon, Wilson, etc.). He goes through history explaining the similarities of the first three types, but completely ignores the Preemptive Presidents. I wanted to fill this gap. The other source of my inspiration came from the fact that my fascination with politics began after Bill Clinton, the President I grew up with, had left office. I wanted to know why he evokes such different emotions from people on opposite sides of the political spectrum. I wanted to know where he would fit into history. This paper taught me fascinating things about the workings of the individual administrations of Bill Clinton and Dwight Eisenhower and about the institution of the Presidency, itself. It has allowed me to not only speak more knowledgeably about these Presidents, but also to incorporate new information about other Presidents into a more refined schema and recognize as future Presidents repeat the same patterns

Presidential Popular Constitutionalism

This Article adds a new dimension to the most important and influential strand of recent constitutional theory: popular or democratic constitutionalism, the investigation into how the U.S. Constitution is interpreted (1) as a set of defining national commitments and practices, not necessarily anchored in the text of the document, and (2) by citizens and elected politicians outside the judiciary. Wide-ranging and groundbreaking scholarship in this area has neglected the role of the President as a popular constitutional interpreter, articulating and revising normative accounts of the nation that interact dynamically with citizens’ constitutional understandings. This Article sets out a “grammar” of presidential popular constitutionalism, lays out the historical development and major transformations in its practice, proposes a set of thematic alternatives for today’s presidential popular constitutionalism, and locates presidential popular constitutionalism within the larger concerns of constitutional theory. In particular, it argues that some of the major political developments of recent decades, such as the “Reagan revolution” and the Clinton-Bush era, can be fully understood only by grasping that they are episodes in presidential popular constitutionalism

Presidential Leadership in the Space Age

Mankind’s quest to reach the moon consisted of many people in leadership positions. In the US, however, many of the decisions behind the space race, especially funding for it, were made by four men: Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Baines Johnson, and Richard Nixon. While some presidents (namely Kennedy) receive more credit than others for their work on bringing man to the moon, each of them passed influential policy that was vital in the development of Apollo: Eisenhower founded NASA and began research on the Saturn V, Kennedy gave vision and urgency to the program, Johnson gave massive funding to it, and Nixon oversaw the program and decided what would come next

“Failing Our Veterans: The G.I. Bill and the Vietnam Generation (Book Review)” by Mark Boulton

Review of Failing Our Veterans: The G.I. Bill and the Vietnam Generation by Mark Boulto

The Eisenhowers at Twilight: A Visit to the Eisenhower Farm, 1967

Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower relished life in Gettysburg. As he often remarked to friends, in retirement Ike sought to secure a piece of property that he could leave in better shape than he found it. The purchase in November 1950 of the 189-acre Redding Farm on the Millertown Road, only a short distance from Confederate A venue, was the outcome. Of course the Eisenhowers could have purchased a sizable farm in any number of locations. A Gettysburg address was predicated on their warm memories of a six-month sojourn in the borough in 1918 and recognition that Gettysburg was a convenient location for access to major cities. Lobbying by the Eisenhowers\u27 friends George and Mary Allen, who owned an 88-acre farm four miles south of the square in Gettysburg, along the Emmitsburg Road, also influenced the Eisenhowers\u27 pursuit of a Gettysburg property. [excerpt

The response of the moderate wing of the Civil Rights Movement to the war in Vietnam

This article explores the response of the moderate wing of the civil rights movement to the war in Vietnam. The moderates, made up of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League, and leaders such as Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph, were initially opposed to the civil rights movement taking a stand against the war. This reluctance was the result of a number of factors, including anti-communism and their own closeness with the administration of President Lyndon Johnson. Crucially, it also resulted from their own experiences of the black freedom struggle itself. The article also documents and analyses the growing anti-war dissent amongst the moderates, culminating in the decision of both the NAACP and the Urban League to adopt an anti-war stance at the end of the 1960s. Despite this, they remained unenthusiastic about participating in peace movement activities, and the reasons for this are explained. Finally, the article suggests that the war was important in exposing existing divisions within the civil rights movement, as well as in generating new ones

Cowboy politics: the changing frontier myth and presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush

This is the first in-depth and comprehensive study of the deployment of the Frontier Myth by US presidents. It explores how and why this quintessential American vision has been adapted and transformed to advance radically different political agendas. The dissertation incorporates key elements from the disciplines of history, literature and anthropology. It explores the relationship between presidential politics, history, literature, and popular culture in representing the frontier and the textual, verbal and visual representations that have been deployed to depict the significance of the westering, frontier experience in relation to the four presidents. The study relies on a broad range of primary and secondary resources from several research institutions including three presidential libraries. My research reveals that major events in American and world history have caused the emphases of the myth of the “Old West” frontier to be reshaped, at times abruptly, so that presidents of different eras could attempt to harness this Western symbolism in promoting their remarkably wide-ranging ideologies and doctrines. The first of the “frontier” Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, vigorously pursued an active federal government and helped directly establish a forward looking Frontier Myth that today would be considered on the left. A series of tragic events during the Lyndon Johnson through Jimmy Carter presidencies (1965-1980), however, including the American quagmire in Vietnam, race riots, economic stagflation, and other crises both at home and abroad, broke up the consensus of a liberal, progressive Frontier Myth that no longer appeared to match the historic experience. These events caused the entire structure and popular representations of American frontier symbols and images to shift political direction from the left to the right, from liberalism to conservatism—a profound change that has had dramatic implications for the history of American thought and presidential politics. The popular idea today that frontier American leaders and politicians are naturally Republicans with conservative ideals flows directly from the Reagan era. Looking forward, the nature of the resilient Frontier Myth could once again be entering a watershed period as it did during the 1960s: its message in the realm of presidential politics depends on the shape and influence of national and world events that will occur in the years and decades to come