Abstract
George Bush had been President of the United States for half a year, elected by a landslide victory and inaugurated in a time of welling chauvinism and superficial prosperity. The American people seemed eager to hear his plans when he gave his first televised address in August of 1989. Whatever disappointment there may have been over pressing needs that were not mentioned, his call to arms in the war on drugs struck a responsive chord. During the next several months, the media was full of feature stories, editorials, news reports, and background accounts about “the drug menace,” the “war on drugs,” and a host of other approaches to drug use and its deadly impact. At one level the imagery of war could be viewed as just a metaphor, a rhetorical device virtually guaranteed to galvanize public opinion, demonstrate the speaker’s decisiveness, rally support, and draw a sharp line between “us” and “them.” No longer a wimp, as he had earlier been characterized, Pres. Bush had identified a common enemy, announced a firm stand, and promised to take action to “defeat” the other side. Such rhetoric on the part of other presidents had been applauded in connection with the “war on poverty” and the “war on illiteracy,” as it had been earlier with the “war against drink” and, probably, in a series of other pseudoevents in American history.
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Heath, D.B. (1996). The War on Drugs as a Metaphor in American Culture. In: Bickel, W.K., DeGrandpre, R.J. (eds) Drug Policy and Human Nature. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3591-5_12
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