Persona and the Modern Republican

Constituting and Deconstituting Republican Ideals in Two Republican Political Ads

Bibliographic Data

ID3755977
AuthorsGrant Cos (Rochester Institute of Technology), Grant C Cos (Rochester Institute of Technology, corresponding author), Babak Elahi (Kettering University, Flint, MI, USA)
Year2022
Volume66
Issue3
Pages323-338
Publication date2022-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00027642211003147
OpenAlexW3144109392
LanguageEN
References cited11

Ronald Reagan's iconic, 1984 advertisement, "Morning in America," has served as an ideological pole star for Republican identity for the past four decades. More recently, the political action committee, The Lincoln Project, a group of ex-Republicans, produced a number of ads highly critical of President Donald Trump's administration. One specific ad, "Mourning in America," uses the form of the original 1984 ad to communicate a set of radically different ideas from the original. This article fuses Black's second persona and Wander's third persona to Charland's idea of constitutive rhetoric to explore how "Morning in America" constitutes a Republican identity via a matrimonial symbolism that connects candidate to a gauzy, constructed community and imagined culture. We argue that the Lincoln Project's "Mourning in America" deconstitutes the very ideals promulgated in the original ad through a stark funereal symbolism. The implications of this symbolism on the Republican identity are discussed in the conclusion

Aesthetics · Art · Humanities · Identity (music) · Ideology · Media studies · Persona · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Sociology · Theology · Gender Studies · Law · Literature, Film, and Journalism Analysis · Media Studies and Communication · Philosophy · Rhetoric and Communication Studies

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