The Democratic Balance
President McKinley's Assassination as Domestic Trauma
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9240656 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jay P Childers (0009-0005-8147-3372, Schlumberger (Ireland), corresponding author) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 99 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 156-179 |
| Publication date | 2013-05-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Quarterly Journal of Speech (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0033-5630 • E-ISSN: 1479-5779 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00335630.2013.775701 |
| OpenAlex | W1979710541 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
As an ideal, democracy has long been understood as a balance between oligarchy and ochlocracy. In practice, this balancing act has to be articulated within specific socio cultural contexts. This essay examines one such articulation in the discursive response to the assassination of President McKinley in 1901 at the hands of self-proclaimed anarchist Leon Czolgosz. It does so by understanding McKinleyapos;s death as domestic trauma—a shocking event that threatened the nation's democratic identity. In response to this traumatic event, this essay ultimately argues a rationalizing discourse emerged that scapegoated the shooter as a weak-minded immigrant and offered a vision of democracy that required citizens have the fitness to rise above group identities and passions and take on the sober-minded responsibility of self-governance
Aesthetics · Articulation (sociology) · Balance (ability) · Democracy · Ideal (ethics) · Identity (music) · Immigration · Literature · Oligarchy · Passions · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Rhetoric · Sociology · Anarchism and Radical Politics · Gender Studies · Law · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.4 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2023 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |