Rhetorical Analysis Of Ronald Reagan's Evil Empire Speech

On March 8, 1983, in Orlando, Florida, Ronald Reagan gave the renowned “Evil Empire” speech to the National Association of Evangelicals. Within this speech Ronald Reagan gives his view of the Soviet Union. He explains the importance of Christianity and how a lack of faith leads to the Soviet Union's totalitarian leadership. He quotes William Penn in saying, "If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants." The speech became prominent because of Reagan’s comparison of the Soviet Union to an evil empire, hence the name of the speech. Reagan gave this comparison when he was defending his position against limiting America’s nuclear arsenal or a nuclear freeze. I have put the quote of Reagan comparing the Soviet Union at the bottom of this essay as it was too big to fit in the middle.

I chose this speech because Ronald Reagan is my second favorite president after Thomas Jefferson. Reagan ended the Cold War and had one of

Especially, the nuclear freeze campaign which staunchly opposed Reagan’s belief of the necessity for nuclear weapons. Ultimately, the speech and other efforts achieved its intended goal of pushing back the nuclear freeze campaign which eventually died off in the 1980s. The speech was very powerful would have convinced me of Reagan’s belief that the United States needed to continue its modernization of nuclear weapons. The tyrannical Soviet Union had no plans of stopping its nuclear weapons programs. Therefore, for the United States to do so would have put America danger of being unequipped to deal with the threat of nuclear war and would give the enemy an upper hand. At least that’s what I understood from the context of the speech. Overall, the speech was very compelling and persuasive. While, I do not agree with everything said in the speech. I still believe Ronald Reagan was a great president who had good constitutional and Christian