The rhetorical presidency is a political communication theory that describes the communication and government style of U.S. presidents in the twentieth century. This theory describes the transition from a presidency that directed rhetoric toward the United States Congress and other government bodies, to one that addresses rhetoric, policy and ideas directly to the public. After political scientists introduced this theory in 1981, Jeffrey K. Tulis authored The Rhetorical Presidency in 1987 establishing itself as the first book on the theory. Tulis established three stages in his book how presidential rhetoric evolved throughout the U.S.' history: the "Old Way", the "Middle Way" and the "New Way". Tulis's book sparked much debate over the historical evolution of presidential rhetoric. Presidential rhetoric integrates both verbal and visual rhetoric practices to gather the support of the public.
History
The development of the rhetorical presidency started in 1898 with William McKinley's (25th U.S. president) fall tour. Other rhetorical presidents include Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt. A few examples of McKinley as a rhetorical president are his speeches following the Spanish-American War around the 1898 midterms. In such speeches, McKinley addressed the electorate on public policy issues. The president following McKinley's assassination in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt, continued to diverge from the traditional presidency into the rhetorical presidency. A key example of his strategized presidential rhetoric was during the Brownsville Raid in 1906. The 28th President, Woodrow Wilson helped transform the presidential office. He used his press conferences as a way to garner support from the American public for certain legislation. Through the use of his fireside chats, Franklin Roosevelt directly addressed the public on policy issues. Starting in 1933, American's tuned in weekly to hear Roosevelt over the radio. He used rhetoric such as "my friends" to informally and emphatically address the public, amidst the Banking Crisis in March 1933. The term "rhetorical presidency" was introduced by political scientists James Ceaser, Glen E. Thurow, Jeffrey Tulis, and Joseph Bessette in 1981. Tulis wrote the foundational book on the subject entitled The Rhetorical Presidency, in 1987. Tulis' book spurred engaged debate on the history and evolution of presidential rhetoric by many professors and professionals, with Tulis himself later revising positions taken, in his book The Rhetorical Presidency in Retrospect, released in 2007. By relying less on the traditional methods of communication with Congress, presidents rely more on the approval of the people as a means of governance. Presidents hope the people will put pressure on their members of Congress to side with the president. The paradigm is typically used to describe presidents pre-Clinton and the "ubiquitous presidency" paradigm has been developed to describe digital age presidencies.
Progressive era
Many progressive presidential candidates campaigned on the rhetoric of righteousness to motivate their Protestant supporters, especially Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La Follette and William Jennings Bryan. Thus Roosevelt's rhetoric was characterized by an intense moralism of personal righteousness. The tone was typified by his denunciation of "predatory wealth" in a message he sent Congress in January 1908 calling for passage of new labor laws: Predatory wealth--of the wealth accumulated on a giant scale by all forms of iniquity, ranging from the oppression of wageworkers to unfair and unwholesome methods of crushing out competition, and to defrauding the public by stock jobbing and the manipulation of securities. Certain wealthy men of this stamp, whose conduct should be abhorrent to every man of ordinarily decent conscience, and who commit the hideous wrong of teaching our young men that phenomenal business success must ordinarily be based on dishonesty, have during the last few months made it apparent that they have banded together to work for a reaction. Their endeavor is to overthrow and discredit all who honestly administer the law, to prevent any additional legislation which would check and restrain them, and to secure if possible a freedom from all restraint which will permit every unscrupulous wrongdoer to do what he wishes unchecked provided he has enough money....The methods by which the Standard Oil people and those engaged in the other combinations of which I have spoken above have achieved great fortunes can only be justified by the advocacy of a system of morality which would also justify every form of criminality on the part of a labor union, and every form of violence, corruption, and fraud, from murder to bribery and ballot box stuffing in politics.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
