Voices of the Depression

Roosevelt sought to capture the national mood in the face of the depression.
- Began the process with a huge election victory in Fall 1932, but a rhetoric to convert that victory into public will was necessary.
"Public" does not mean "governmental." That we think of the two the same is testament to the power of government rhetoric in the 20th century to assume leadership of the public sphere. "Public" are those things that we decide to address as a community. Governmental power is acquired as the government is seen as leading public response. Thus, converting public commitment to governmental power is a rhetorical problematic.
In a democracy, political power arises from organizing the public. In "normal" times "the public" is diffuse and unorganized. The public is various and divided. Leaders need to articulate the motivation for public action in a way that unites the public in commitment. When they do so, non-public or private matters pass into the public domain and become the focus of public will. The leaders who articulate the motivation for public action acquire political power. (Note that political power does not flow from having a governmental office, although that office can be a base for political power. Political power emerges when public will is organized toward public action.)

Franklin Roosevelt's Accomplishment

The rhetoric of the New Deal was fundamentally about establishing the power of governmental leadership in the public sphere. So, it behooves us to consider what the rhetorical power of leadership entails. Look for how Roosevelt accomplishes these in discourse as you study his speeches.

To Give Voice: A successful rhetoric of situation. A voice of leadership is able to express people's frustrations and to articulate for them a viewpoint that makes the experiences of their lives make sense. Thus, a leader is able to made sense of, to give meaning to, the situations that a community faces.
Direction: An encompassing rhetoric of action. A voice of leadership articulates a viewpoint on the situation that identifies action that will guide the community in responding in a way that will address the needs of the situation. This includes a rhetoric that provides a sense that actions are solutions -- that they promise effective response. There is, therefore, a faith in the efficacy of community action.
Authority as Legitimacy: The leader's actions are right. Right in both senses of the term: that actions are the correct choices and that they are appropriate for effective leaders. A voice of leadership connects his/her actions with traditions of action and leadership in the community. They clothe their actions in accepted patterns of earlier leaders.
Authority as Power: Naming targets for action & communicating effectiveness in addressing them. The voice of leadership asserts itself. It not only provides legitimacy -- that sense of rightness -- but it celebrates its success to reinforce that power.
Mood or Attitude: Posturing the public. The voice of leadership not only directs action, but sets the mood of the community. It restores faith, directs anger, and channels these emotions into support for its leadership

Understanding Franklin Roosevelt's Rhetorical Strategies

These ways of mapping his strategies help us to understand how FDR accomplished his rhetorical tasks.

Managing Permanence and Change

Roosevelt had to manage the dialectic of permanence and change that all leaders who support or oppose change must master.

To achieve change, rhetoric must communicate continuity. There has to be a vision of how we will get from here to there along familiar paths. There has to be a sense that the change is "in character" for the community.
To preserve, rhetoric must communicate adjustment to new circumstances. We must see new events in familiar ways. Old motives must be reinvigorated.

Roosevelt's task was in many ways to save capitalism, so he had to preserve the belief in capitalism. At the same time, he had to motivate change to address the crisis of the depression. How does he do it?

The New Deal Motive

Symbolic Motive:

A language structure with which to construct an account of the moment that guides response.
A framework for telling the story of where we are? How we got here? How we can get out?

The New Deal provided a rhetoric that provided a way of understanding events that motivated community response led by government. This motive lasted for fifty years and was one of the most long-lasting of American motives for government action.

Problem-Solution structure

Problem caused by human failure. Thus, it was manageable by controlling these failures.
Problem is humanly addressable. Government passes laws to control such criminal actions.

The personae

The people as dispossessed. The human devastation in the community resulted not from characteristics inherent in the people so effected, but because the power of others affected their success.
Oppressed by the irresponsible (greedy, negligent). Power had been exercised for evil purposes and to oppress the dispossessed.
Government as leader. The New Deal offered the government as a power source to counter the greedy exercise of power. Government power could instantiate values of the community ignored by those who sought their personal interests.

The action

In human system. The New Deal saw power exercised by human beings against each other. The "automatic" adjustments of the marketplace were seen as overcome by powerful humans. So humans were caught in a system of power.
Government provides power to solve. Government exercised its power to counter the power of others. Thus, government actions required limiting the abuses of the powerful.

This frame for talking about events drew problems into a rationale for governmental power. New problems incorporated into it enhanced governmental power and expanded the sense of public problem.

Rhetorical Dimensions of Political Will

Public will responds to the material conditions of a society, but material conditions do not become the target of public commitment without the use of discourse to frame understanding and motivate response to the conditions. The material conditions may be in the economic -- poverty or exploitation of the poor by the wealthy -- social -- crime or the deterioration of family structure -- health -- pollution or AIDS -- or any other domain of life. To transform the conditions into the motivation for public action several rhetorical dimensions develop:

Naming a concern: A vocabulary that draws a frame around the conditions is necessary to awareness of them. The name also serves to invoke the value judgement. For example, once notions of corporal punishment of a child becomes "child abuse" it has moved from being a private interest in disciplining our children to being a public interest of abusing children. Once telling a crude joke to the female employee has moved from being "treating her as one of the guys" to being harrassment, it has become a public issue.
Valuing: With discourse we declare the condition to be something that deserves our attention and our energies. We condemn some aspects of it; we may praise other aspects. We connect the condition with the values and commitments of our community.
Historicizing: Once we see something as a concern -- something that deserves our attention -- we still need to see it as a community or public concern rather than a personal one. To achieve this we must fit the concern into the context of the values and commitments of our community.
Effective leaders frame the condition in the dialectic of permanence and change. Those seeking change must present the change as a continuation of something traditional, it is an extension of an old commitment. Those opposing change must offer change to meet the concern without adopting the proposed change. Thus, those seeking change must locate their change in conservative principles and those opposing change must describe the evolution in their world.
Motivating: Rhetoric also intensifies the motivation for action. Vivid images in discourse call attention to the the problem and activate concern. Deeply held values and commitments are connected with the proposed activity. The more deeply the commuinity feels its commitment, the more motivated the action.
Policiticizing: For a political leader, rhetoric offers political vehicles as a way to fulfill public commitments. The leader must frame the problem in such a way that governmental solutions seem possible. Otherwise, leaders other than governmental leaders are the appropriate leaders to follow. Political leaders build their power by claiming problems and giving faith that they can address problems

The Changing Media

Early in the century public speaking had been in the public square. By Roosevelt's day, radio was in its infancy. He learned to master this medium.

In the 1920s, radio mushroomed in the United States. In the decade of business power, control of radio was established in a commercial system. The government was used as a registry for wave-bands, but little else.
Radio narrowed the public sphere. Listening shifted from the public spaces such as the square and the lecture hall into the privacy of the living room. The home, which had been the location of the private domain, became a territory for the public as well. But access to voice was now controlled by the commercial decisions of broadcasters. To get access to the radio, you had to deliver a large audience. Those who would draw smaller audiences -- earlier to the square or the lecture hall -- were silenced in the new media. Yet, the growth of radio meant that the power to be on the radio became a power to influence the public sphere. The result was that the public sphere narrowed to community leaders and voices that could marshall a mass of listeners. Participation by the masses (newly defined by the "mass media") became the passive act of listening rather than the active role of an audience member.
Franklin Roosevelt established his power through his ability to master this new medium. Roosevelt could make listening in the living room seem like a friendly chat in person. The strategies through which he did this established a source of his public power.