Ronald Reagan\'s \"Evil Empire\" Speech

Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire" Speech

Perspective: The speech Reagan gave was before the National Association of Evangelicals in Florida on March 8, 1983. Reagan had courted the Christian Conservative movement during his campaigns for the presidency, and he considered Evangelicals and all conservative Christians as an important constituency (like Reagan, they were pro-life). Reagan considered himself a Presbyterian and Presbyterians see their faith as linked to evangelicalism.

Evil Empire Speech: Two powerful rhetorical concepts that are present in the Reagan speech -- and will be applied to this essay -- are "fear appeals" and "metaphor." The embedded artistic strategy for Reagan was twofold: one, he wanted to please and indeed inspire the national Evangelical movement to lobby their legislatures in support of his political agenda; and two, he wanted to use this opportunity in front of a conservative religious organization to lash out at the devil on earth, whom Reagan identified as the Soviet Union.

Of course in addition to the fear appeals and metaphors in the speech, Reagan made a dramatic point to be ingratiated with the conservative religious activists in the crowd (and those who would hear or see the speech later in church through videotape reproduction) by saying he and First Lady Nancy Reagan felt their prayers.

By mentioning Abraham Lincoln -- and comparing himself to Lincoln by inference -- Reagan pulls off his first metaphor with style. The implication is that like Lincoln, among the most revered American presidents, Reagan gets down on his knees too. But simply bringing Lincoln's name into the conversation makes the point well for Reagan. A bit later Reagan also quoted George Washington and Thomas Jefferson -- making it a trinity of the more celebrated of U.S. Presidents.

In his build-up to the statement that the Soviet Union is an "evil empire" Reagan works with passion to paint a picture that "freedom" and "God" go together. He presented a case that democracy and God go hand in hand, and for those nations that don't honor God they by implication are evil. Reagan's reference to William Penn -- a pacifist and a Quaker -- was taken out of context, but it fit his purposes well. "If we are not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants," was the quote Reagan used. This also brings in the fear appeal, and in front of conservative Christians it played well. William Penn by the way also said the Roman Catholic Church was "The Whore of Babylon" and Puritans he said were "hypocrites."

Meantime, Reagan brings God into the speech as a metaphor for his own political viewpoint. His political position is based on "respect for the rule of law under God," he says, and proceeds to attack those whose "value system is radically different from that of most Americans." Who are these people? They are the ones who think they are "freeing us from superstitions of the past…" and have "louder voices" than the Christians. Some of the bad people Reagan alludes to are newspaper editors but in general the implication is that those who are pro-choice want to "water down traditional values and even abrogate the original terms of American democracy." (Abrogate means to "Abolish by authoritative action"). Here is a fear appeal by Reagan; in other words, if the conservative Christian movement doesn't stand up to the liberals who want progressive policies on abortion, those liberals will destroy democracy.

After criticizing the people who stand for things that the Christian conservative movement opposes, and clearly staking out his position as a "good" president who opposes "evil" things in society, Reagan launched into his main agenda for the day, his metaphor that the Soviet Union is the devil personified. Built into the metaphor of Soviets as the devil is Reagan's fear appeals. In the Soviet Union, "Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war," Reagan explained; the "only morality they recognize is…world revolution" (fear appeal).

"We will never give away our freedom," Reagan went on, and in a few moments attacked (without mentioning their names) those U.S. Senators and Congressmen (and other leaders) who had demanded the U.S. stop testing underground nuclear devices in Nevada. "The truth is, a freeze now would be a very dangerous fraud," he said, and "dangerous fraud" here is a metaphor for those who would have the U.S. halt its nuclear weapons' buildup. By calling they dangerous and fraudulent, Reagan elevates himself as the leader to a place with higher moral values.

"The kind of freeze that has been suggested would be virtually impossible to verify," Reagan asserted. By "freeze" Reagan meant the U.S. unilaterally would just stop producing new and bigger weapons, which some people had recommended but their voices were never taken very seriously in Washington DC. At this point in the rhetoric, Reagan uses a story involving children to touch hearts in the audience, and to pound home his theme that the communists in the Soviet Union are the devil. The father (in Reagan's story) said he would rather see "my little girls die now; still believing in God, than have them grow up under communism and one day die no longer believing in God." The metaphor here embraces martyrdom. This is pure fear appeal, to bring little girls into the discussion, and then to say the father had spoken "profound truth."