Partisan Peacekeeping Rhetorical Analysis

Partisan Peacekeeping
How should peace be kept in our nation? Across political party lines, peace remains an important issue; maintaining peace is, and forever will be, a central issue for political campaigns, regardless of political afiliation. Peace is crucial to our nation’s success, and the various parties have very different views on how it should be achieved. Some want a more involved military approach, while others want to simply avoid conflicts. In both the campaigns of 1956 and 1980, peace was a prominent issue; however the Republican and Democratic views on keeping the peace remained stable despite two decades of change between the elections.
In the election of 1956, the Republican candidate, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was resting on …show more content…
The the Republican candidate, Ronald Reagan, was arguing for a less intense method of peacekeeping, while the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, had just completed a peaceful presidency through increased military strength ,and was campaigning for more of the same. Reagan’s ad begins by reminding the audience of recent conflicts the United States has been invovled in, planting a seed of doubt in Carter in their minds, as they realize that his “weak” leadership has failed them(“Peace (Republican)”). This makes the audience realize that Carter’s military approach may not work after all, seeing as it has just failed, and if continued, may continue to fail, increasing conflict. He also states that it’s “just as bad” when enemies think a nation’s strength is fading, even if it isn’t, which makes the audience even less confident in “weak” Jimmy Carter ((“Peace (Republican)”). Reagan then stresses the need of “lasting world peace” and informs the public of the fact that the United States have been at war “four times in [his] lifetime” (“Peace (Republican)”). This claim, followed by such a shocking fact, sways the voters to his side, as they, too, want lasting peace, and have experienced repeated wars. Reagan’s claim insinuates that the method of peacekeeping favored by his opponent is one of the reasons for the lack of extended peace, and he calls for negotiations for an “equitable arms limitation” with the Soviet Union, preferring to limit weapons than expand them(“Peace (Republican)”). He even takes the initiative to say that he, himself, will negotiate with the Soviet Union “for as long as it takes” to get a deal that will protect the peace(“Peace (Republican)”). Carter’s ad, on the other hand, focuses in on the peace he was able to maintain, stating how he was “grateful” to look back on a peaceful term, ignoring the minor conflict towards the end of his term that Reagan mentions

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