From a government of the people, to a people of the government: Irony as rhetorical strategy in presidential campaigns

Quarterly Journal of Speech

Volumn 82, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 22-37

  Moore, Mark P ^a  

^a OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85011221863     PISSN: 00335630     EISSN: 14795779     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00335639609384138     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. See Paul R. Abramson, Political Attitudes in America (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1983) 8-14
2. W. Lance Bennett, The Governing Crisis: Media, Money, and Marketing in American Elections (New York: St. Martin's, 1992) 13-39
3. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dirty Politics: Deception, Distraction, and Democracy (New York: Oxford UP, 1992) 43-102, 203-236.
4. This is exacerbated by stressing the “image” of cynicism more than the “dialectic” of government. See Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley: U of California P, 1969) 254.
5. Lydia Saad, “Anti-Washington Sentiment Driving Perot Vote,” The Gallup Poll Monthly June 1992: 39
6. Larry Hugick, “Dissatisfaction with State of Nation at Historic High Point,” The Gallup Poll Monthly June 1992: 17
7. Larry Hugick, “Anti-incumbent Sentiment,” The Gallup Poll Monthly November 1991: 16-17
8. Richard G. Niemi, John Mueller, and Tom W. Smith, Trends in Public Opinion: A Compendium of Survey Data (New York: Creenwood, 1989) 93-97.
9. On the roles, functions, and significance of the nomination acceptance address, see Thomas B. Farrell, “Political Conventions as Legitimation Ritual,” Communication Monographs 45 (1978): 293-305
10. George W. Dell, “Republican Nominee: Barry M. Goldwater,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 50 (1964): 399-404
11. Richard Joslyn, Mass Media & Elections (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1984) 134
12. Judith S. Trent and Robert V. Friedenberg, Political Campaign Communication, 2nd ed. (New York: Praeger, 1991) 184.
13. See Walter R. Fisher, “Reaffirmation and Subversion of the American Dream,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 59 (1973): 160-167
14. Ernest G. Bormann, “Fetching Good Out of Evil: A Rhetorical Use of Calamity,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 63 (1977): 130-139
15. Richard L. Johannesen, “Ronald Reagan’s Economic Jeremiad,” Central States Speech Journal?,! (1986): 157-172.
16. E.J. Dionne Jr., Why Americans Hate Politics (New York: Simon, 1991) 17.
17. Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives (Berkeley: U of California P, 1969) 512.
18. On Burke’s notion of irony as a figure of thought, see Michael Lef F, “Burke’s Ciceronianism,” The Legacy of Kenneth Burke, eds. Herbert W. Simons and Trevor Melia (Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 1989) 119-121
19. Thomas Rosteck, “See it Now” Confronts McCarthyism: Television Documentary and the Politics of Representation (Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 1994) 138-140.
20. Burke, Grammar 512. See also Kenneth Burke, Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method (Berkeley: U of California P, 1966) 469-479
21. Edward C. Appel, “Implication and Importance of the Negative in Burke’s Dramatistic Philosophy of Language,” Communication Quarterly 41 (1993): 60. Of those who focus on the “sympathetic” aspects of irony, no one, as David Kaufer suggests, “goes nearly as far as Kenneth Burke” (“Irony and Rhetorical Strategy,” Philosophy and Rhetoric 10 [1977]: 94). The trope “has come to signify a split perspective between appearance and reality in all its forms” Kaufer, 92; see also, Allan B. Karsetter, “Toward a Theory of Rhetorical Irony,” Speech Monographs 31 [1964]: 162-178
22. G.G. Sedgewick, Of Irony Especially in Drama [Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1935] 3-28
23. Norman Knox, The Word Irony and Its Context, 1500-1755 [Durham: Duke UP, 1961] 3-23. In The Compass of Irony (London: Methuen, 1969), D.C. Muecke establishes the term, “situational irony,” which suits this study particularly well and can be identified in political discourse by introducing it with the implied, "it is ironic that…” (42).
24. Wayne C. Booth, “The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Irony: Or, Why You Don’t Say What You Mean?” Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Literature: An Exploration, ed. D.M. Burks (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue UP, 1978) 12.
25. Karen A. Foss and Stephen W. Littlejohn, “The Day After: Rhetorical Vision in an Ironic Frame,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 3 (1986): 329.
26. Wayne C. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1974) 40.
27. See Kenneth Burke, Attitudes Toward History (Berkeley: U of California P, 1984) 171. Burke discusses the idea of transcendence in and through discourse in The Rhetoric of Religion: Studies in Logology (Berkeley: U of California P, 1970).
28. For a relevant discussion of irony in politics and theory, see John Evan Seery, Political Returns: Irony in Politics and Theory from Plato to the Antinuclear Movement (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990) 340-346.
29. Barry Goldwater, “Economic Realities,” Vital Speeches of the Day 30 (1964): 234.
30. Barry Goldwater, “The Republican National Convention: Acceptance Address,” Vital Speeches of the Day 30 (1964): 642.
31. For more on Goldwater’s anti-government themes, see John C. Hammerback, “Barry Goldwater’s Rhetoric of Rugged Individualism,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 58 (1972): 175-183
32. Ernest J. Wrage, “The Little World of Barry Goldwater,” Western Journal of Speech Communication 27 (1963): 207-215.
33. ReinhoId Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (New York: Scribner’s, 1952): 1.
34. Thomas E. Dewey, “Ideals of Republican Party,” Vital Speeches of the Day 14 (1948): 548.
35. AdIai E. Stevenson, “The Democratic National Convention: Acceptance Address,” Vital Speeches of the Day 22 (1956): 680.
36. John H. Patton, “A Government as Good as Its People: Jimmy Carter and the Restoration of Transcendence to Politics,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 63 (1977): 249. Carter’s rhetoric of transcendence was based on his belief there is an innate goodness of the people, which should be the foundation of politics.
37. See Jimmy Carter, Why Not the Best? (New York: Bantam, 1976) 147.
38. Jimmy Carter, “Democratic National Convention: Acceptance Address,” Vital Speeches of the Day 42 (1976): 643. All further quotes by Carter are taken from this text unless otherwise noted.
39. Barry Brummett, “Burkean Scapegoating, Mortification, and Transcendence in Presidential Campaign Rhetoric,” Central States Speech Journal 32 (1981): 259.
40. Reagan’s use of humor during his 1980 nomination acceptance address and campaign is discussed as a way to convey a sense of “superiority” toward government by John Meyer, “Ronald Reagan and Humor: A Politician’s Velvet Weapon,” Communication Studies 41 (1990): 84-86.
41. RonaId Reagan, “Republican National Convention Presidential Nomination: Acceptance Address,” Vital Speeches of the Day 56 (1980): 642. All further quotes by Reagan are taken from this text unless otherwise noted. Here Reagan capitalizes on the “crisis of confidence” that resulted from “the pessimistic views Americans had about the future” as well as their “lack of confidence in public institutions” (Abramson 13). For a report on the loss of confidence in public institutions since 1973
42. see George Gallup and Dr. Frank Newport, “Confidence in Major U.S. Institutions at All-time Low,” The Gallup Poll Monthly October 1991: 36-37.
43. George Gallup Jr. and Dr. Frank Newport, “Americans Deeply Dissatisfied with Congress,” The Gallup Poll Monthly October 1990: 36
44. “Satisfaction of American Public at Lowest Levels Since Early Reagan Recession,” The Gallup Poll Monthly October 1990: 31-33.
45. David Broder, “They Know Campaigners Con Them,” Sacramento Bee 21 Jan. 1990: FI.
46. Howard Fineman, “Sixties Coming of Age,” Newsweek 20 July 1992: 32-35
47. Joe Klien, “Clinton the Survivor,” Newsweek 20 July 1992: 23-25.
48. Quoted in Henry Muller and John F. Stacks, “An Interview With Clinton,” Time 20 July 1992: 25.
49. On this type of dissociation of concepts, see C.H. Perelman and L. Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, trans. John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1969) 411-419.
50. See Kenneth Burke, “Towards Helhaven: Three Stages of a Vision,” Sewanee Review 79 (1971): 20.