Ronald Reagan's Inaugural Speech

January 28, 1986, marks the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger Explosion. A day that will go down in history as a horrible tragedy for both NASA and America. Seven lives were lost that day, including the life of a high school teacher from New Hampshire. Former President Ronald Reagan was tasked with explaining this tragic event to the US people. Because of this, Reagan postponed the State of the Union Address and spoke about the Challenger Explosion instead. In his address to the nation about the explosion of the space shuttle, Challenger, President Ronald Reagan effectively commemorates the loss of the Challenger crew while also celebrating the crew’s achievements and encouraging further space travel by establishing pathos through his show of empathy, employing strong positive connotation, and alluding to the great explorer, Sir Francis Drake.

Presidents of the United States are expected to lead the country and find solutions to its problems, but the chances of being allowed to do marginal political steps are negligible and success is rarely accomplished. Ronald Reagan was the president successful in bringing fundamental change in American politics. He was likeable man, great communicator, who offered himself as the leader at a time when economy was a shambles and restored the nation 's confidence in the White House. His new approach was focused on the reorientation of the U.S. budgetary system, fiscal and tax policies as a break with the economic priorities of previous administrations. Even though he was not very experienced in foreign affairs and many of the ideas originated from movies the president had seen, Reagan with his confrontational rhetoric significantly contributed to the changes in the world politics . The whole era of his presidency (1981 – 1989) is called the `Reagan Revolution`.

The purpose of Reagan's address was to inspire the people to revitalize the American government and rebuild the economy. Reagan emphasizes the importance of returning power to the people, and he motivates the people to take part in improving the economy by calling the everyday working man an "American hero." Reagan creates the argument that a better future is in the hands of the people, not in the hands of the federal government. He specifies that the people are the everyday heroes that keep the economy alive. Reagan builds unity and a sense of togetherness in the American people through the use of rhetorical strategies like Kairos, anaphora, and rhetorical questions. He also drives his argument home by directly addressing the people, and by

On January 28, 1986, a day that was supposed to be filled with excitement and exploration, suddenly turned into a day filled with tragedy and sadness. The space shuttle Challenger was supposed to carry a seven member crew into orbit with one unique member along for this particular mission. Christa McAuliffe was supposed to be the first teacher to go into space as a member of the Teacher in Space Project. Due to this occasion, the media coverage and the number of viewers of this mission was extensive, particularly in schools across the nation. The Challenger lifted off shortly after 11:30 A.M., but tragically only seventy three seconds after takeoff it exploded sending debris and the seven crew members back to earth and into the Atlantic

With many changes on the horizon at the time, America was given something and someone to believe in. Many speakers in history have had powerful points and strong words sometimes expressing through a forceful nature intended to scare listeners. Reagan was a speaker who developed a commanding but soothing way that was appealing to the world. Regardless of his background as an actor, the

For the audience he gives them examples of how government interference hurts Americans and also allusions to past times such as the revolution and how the founding fathers did not want a big government. He shares that he has “an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we base our hopes the future.” Reagan’s ability to connect with his audience was rare and unlike many of his colleagues. Whether the topics he spoke on were always relevant to that of the listener, it did not always matter.

In conclusion, President Reagan was operative in convincing his audience that he was the right choice for who should lead the U.S. I firmly believe that Ronald Reagan was the last good President we had in office. He not only kept to his word, but also was able to inspire the American people and remind them what hope was and what it looked and felt like. Shown through this piece, it is evident that he was an eloquent communicator and an overall persuasive orator. By using pathos, rhetorical questioning,

The last element of the rhetorical situation is speech. Reagan’s primary objective of this speech was to show his condolence to those of who suffered from the accident and involve audience to join for grief. Throughout his speech his ideas were carried in a coherent way, without deviating from his objective. Reagan achieved this through using various words and phrases that magnify his emotion. Using phrases such as “slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god” illustrated his feeling towards the situation without much of explanation. In addition, because he understood that the audience of this particular speech consisted of diversity of

Most of the appeal in this speech is to pathos. Very early on in his speech Reagan states, “And so many times I wanted to stop and reach out from behind the glass, and connect. Well maybe I can do a little of that tonight”. This is the beginning of his regard to pathos. With this statement he is trying to make a connection with the people which he did a phenomenal job of doing so. He uses the term “we” throughout the speech because he wants to be sure that the people know and understand that he has served this country for them. Reagan is also sure to make the people apart of his serving time. “I’ve been asked if I have any regrets. Well I do. The deficit is one”, this is another example of Reagan stepping out of his President shoes and admitting that there were mistakes that were made during his term. His intentions are to simply make the American people proud to be Americans.

Another sub-audience who needed more guidance and consolation were the schoolchildren, especially those watched the disaster live. He briefly changed his tone to that of a parent and tried to ease the children’s fear by explaining “sometimes painful things like this happen”, but nonetheless we will continue our space exploration because “the future doesn’t belong to the

This speech has meaning, excites emotions and reaches out to all, which makes it a great speech. Although Reagan chooses to ignore his administrations responsibility in The Challenger disaster, he concentrates instead on reassurance of the nation which makes this speech uplifting to the American people.

His reviving of the B-1 Bomber that former President Carter cancelled manifested his philosophy on peace through strength. Another slogan of Ronald’s was ‘morning in America.’ It was for his re-election bid, and it symbolized a new beginning for America. Reagan’s optimism and economic boom was uplifting compared to the previous

As a result, Reagan’s popularity slipped from 67 percent to 46 percent in less than a week (Mayer). By the time, it was the low point of the Reagan presidency (157, Ehrman) Add to this situation, the failure of space program led to negative ethos of Reagan in public’s mind. President Reagan understood this situation and tried to calm the hostilities by delivering the speech sincerely.

Never has there been such an opportunity to express your love for one’s country than when given the opportunity to lead them. Ronald Reagan got that opportunity on January 20, 1981, after being elected as the new President of the United States. During his first inaugural speech, Reagan uses Kairos, his first true opportunity, to rally the American people behind his ideals and gain their trust by using pathos, ethos, and logos.

President Reagan read his speech in public with so much care for the people and their families. Some examples that shows that he cares is that in the first paragraph he says “We know we share this pain with all of the people of our country”. This part of speech says a lot because he is referring to that the deaths of the astronauts has not been hard on the families but also on the country. President Reagan wants the audience and the crowd watching to feel the pain and also the astronauts were brave enough to go up in mission without caring about the consequences.