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Donald Trump's campaign violated every rule of presidential campaigns, and few commentators thought that he had a chance to win the presidency. His success can be traced to the strong affective connection that he created with core supporters. Trump used a rhetoric of nationalist populism with a charismatic outsider persona, a rhetorical pattern that functioned as an affective genre, to create this connection. This pattern is evident in campaign rallies, his speech at the Republican National Convention, and his inaugural address. Trump's successful use of a rhetoric of nationalist populism has important implications for the status of American democracy.

President Ronald Reagan’s famous address to the Houses of Parliament is now considered—in its spirit if not in its actual words—to be the initial enunciation of his “Evil Empire” stance. In this important volume by two experienced rhetorical scholars, Robert C. Rowland and John M. Jones offer a historical-descriptive treatment that includes both rhetorical analysis and a narrative of the drafting of the speech. They consider Reagan’s focus on “ultimate definition,” “dialectical engagement,” and other rhetorical tools in crafting and presenting the momentous address. They also note the irony of Reagan’s use of Leon Trotsky’s phrase “ash-heap of history” to predict the demise of Communism.

Shared Land/Conflicting Identity: Trajectories of Israeli and Palestinian Symbol Useargues that rhetoric, ideology, and myth have played key roles in influencing the development of the 100-year conflict between first the Zionist settlers and the current Israeli people and the Palestinian residents in what is now Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is usually treated as an issue of land and water. While these elements are the core of the conflict, they are heavily influenced by the symbols used by both peoples to describe, understand, and persuade each other. The authors argue that symbolic practices deeply influenced the Oslo Accords, and that the breakthrough in the peace process that led to Oslo could not have occurred without a breakthrough in communication styles.Rowland and Frank develop four crucial ideas on social development: the roles of rhetoric, ideology, and myth; the influence of symbolic factors; specific symbolic factors that played a key role in peace negotiations; and the identification and value of criteria for evaluating symbolic practices in any society.

This essay argues that President Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address used a perfected and condensed form of ultimate definition consisting of an ideological argument, an underlying mythic narrative, and a value system. These three components served to redefine the American Dream and to reinforce the limited role of government, placing the responsibility for curing America’s ills on the individual rather than the federal government.

This essay examines Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address. In this speech, Reagan used a strategy of “ultimate definition,” consisting of three components. First, the inaugural articulated a broad ideological worldview that prescribed a very limited role for government as the solution to the economic crisis. Second, it appealed to a value system that co-opted the progressive values of contemporary liberalism. Finally, it contained a powerful narration of that worldview in the form of an individualist story of the American Dream.

This essay examines Ronald Reagan’s 1983 speech to the National Association of Evangelicals, along with speeches and foundational documents leading up to the address. We argue that Reagan utilized a rhetorical approach consistent with what Martin and Annelise Anderson have termed a “grand strategy” for winning the Cold War. This “strategy” consisted of three components. First, Reagan labeled the Soviet system evil and a failure. Second, Reagan argued that the path to victory required an arms buildup that would leave the Soviets with no choice but to negotiate arms reduction. Finally, Reagan’s rhetoric contained a defense of liberal democracy and the prediction that such a system eventually would triumph over Soviet communism.

President Barack Obama focused his campaign for health care reform on more than merely winning support; he also aimed to revitalize the very idea of public reason. It is for this reason that in the face of strident opposition from the Right and calls from the Left for him to renounce reasoned discourse that he redoubled his efforts to educate the people. Obamas efforts not only to sell his proposal but also to revitalize the idea of public reason at the heart ofMadisonian democracy were not fully successful, but he demonstrated that reasoned argument remains a powerful force in American life.

This essay examines the way in which Barack Obama, in his \"More Perfect Union\" address, dealt with the Rev. Wright controversy and confronted issues of race. We argue that Obama, faced with a controversy that jeopardized his candidacy, first explained the anger of both white and black Americans and then linked the problems of race in America to the American Dream, arguing that only by making that dream available to all citizens could those problems be remedied. We then draw implications for both dream narratives and for Obama's political discourse.

In this essay, we outline the defining characteristics of the rhetoric of atonement and argue that it as an identifiable sub-genre of apologia. In building this argument, we examine the purposive and situational constraints that lead to atonement and argue that atonement rhetoric can be defined based on five characteristics. We use an analysis of several instances in which President Clinton relied upon atonement to illustrate the power and function of the sub-genre.