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The Rhetoric of the Benign Scapegoat: President Reagan and the Federal Government

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The Rhetoric of the Benign Scapegoat: President Reagan and the Federal Government Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 2000 The Rhetoric of the Benign Scapegoat: President Reagan and the Federal Government. Stephen Wayne Braden Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Braden, Stephen Wayne, "The Rhetoric of the Benign Scapegoat: President Reagan and the Federal Government." (2000). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 7340. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/7340 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE RHETORIC OF THE BENIGN SCAPEGOAT: PRESIDENT REAGAN AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Speech Communication by Stephen Wayne Braden B.S., Southwest Missouri State University, 1991 M.A., Southwest Missouri State University, 1993 December 2000 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 9998659 UMI UMI Microform 9998659 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In 1987, at the age of 35, I entered my first college classroom. To be frank, I was terrified. But the journey to a terminal degree has been an enjoyable one. Many people have helped me along my way. I will mention some of them in this acknowledgment. I wish to thank Professor Andrew King for his guidance in preparing this manuscript, but also for his encouragement, and his friendship. I also wish to thank Drs. Wayne Parent, Renee Edwards, Ruth Bowman, and Brij Mohan for being committee members. I would be remiss if I did not mention Dr. John Sisco of Southwest Missouri State University with whom I had my first graduate class, and who made me answer the "so what" question early in my graduate career. Thanks is also due to my parents, Roger and Betty Braden. They always supported me, no questions asked. I wish to thank my daughter, Bridget Braden, who at the age of 13 unselfishly told me to move to Baton Rouge if that is what I really wanted to do. I thank my wife, Elaine, for her support, love, and encouragement. Life is much easier and more enjoyable with her by my side. ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...........................................................ii ABSTRACT .................................................................................iv CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE 1 RESEARCH INTENT 2 SCAPEGOATING AND THE REDEMPTIVE............ 2 0 CYCLE 3 THREE CASE STUDIES OF POLITICAL..................4 2 SCAPEGOATING IN AMERICANS POLITICS 4 PRIMARY CHARACTERISTICS O F ..........................5 9 PRESIDENT REAGAN'S RHETORIC 5 REAGAN'S GOVERNMENTAL ATTACK .............. 122 6 SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS. A N D ....................... 157 CONSEQUENCES REFERENCES ...................................................................... 165 VITA ........................................................................................172 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Ronald Reagan deservedly attained the moniker "The Great Communicator" due to his rhetorical prowess. This dissertation addresses an aspect, governmental scapegoating, of Reagan's rhetorical strategy. Traditional scapegoating theory claims that the scapegoat is either killed or driven from the community. However, I claim that Reagan profited by making a unique use of the scapegoat, one that was benign, the government remained essentially unscathed. The means to analyze Reagan's discourse is Kenneth Burke's cycle of guilt, victimage, redemption and rebirth. Ten speeches of President Reagan are analyzed: both of his Inaugural Addresses, his Economic Recovery Speech, and his seven State of the Union Addresses. Analysis revealed a consistent pattern of federal bureaucratic attack throughout Reagan's eight years in office. Although Reagan successfully utilized his benign scapegoating, concern arises when the United States' form of government, representative democracy, is considered. Scapegoating can stifle discourse, a potentially dangerous outcome for a free and open society. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND STATEMENT OF THE RESEARCH INTENT INTRODUCTION The period between 1930 and 1980 has been characterized by a vast expansion of the power and responsibility of the federal government in the United States. The expansion has varied in its pace and extent. At times it has been dramatic and systemic, at other times it has been slow and incremental. The New Deal response to the Great Depression, the vast mobilization for World War II, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Great Society, and other large-scale projects allowed human and other material resources to flow to Washington D.C. Traditionalists like Robert Taft and Barry Goldwater routinely protested that the steady intervention of the central government was weakening state and local governments through a steady drain of brains and dollars and that a growing federal bureaucracy was hurting individual enterprise and causing the populace to become dependent on the Federal Government. However, their voices were generally discounted, for this was an era of unprecedented prosperity. The United States government had achieved great successes on the battlefield in battling tyranny. Its resources were 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. allocated to alleviate hunger, disease, and ignorance. At home, the Gl Bill, FHA Housing, loans, and Social Security were highly prized. Thus, the credibility and policies of the government remained high and filled the void left by the demise of European Empires in world affairs. In the early 1970's vast changes took place. The Middle-East oil cartel and the full post-World W ar II recovery of United States' market competitors in Europe and Japan threatened American hegemony. Loss of foreign markets, double-digit inflation, the lost war in Vietnam and the national angst it caused, the decline in real wages, accelerated loss of farms, the Watergate scandal, a growing reaction on the part of the white majority to social programs they saw as failing, and a long list of perceived foreign and domestic failures eroded the national faith in the federal government, a loss of confidence that will be documented in an appropriate place in this dissertation. This loss of faith gave credibility to the Goldwater wing of the Republican Party, and in particular+o the popular California governor, Ronald Wilson Reagan. With growing success, Reagan argued the expansion of the federal government was a primary cause of the loss of America's global competitiveness and a threat to unity at home. He 2 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. promised to "get the government off our backs" and to liberate the genius of the American people from a "stifling and
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