Category Archives: Arsenal Site

To our past readers from Starboard Broadside, shuttered at the beginning of February 2011, Nate and I want to welcome you back.

The two of us have been very busy on a number of other endeavors in the past 33 months, which didn’t leave us much time for writing. This won’t be the same site, of course, but we’re looking forward to delivering some of the same type of insights and essays you have come to expect from us, as well as some new ones, on a regular and, we hope, daily basis.

It is particularly fitting as we launch this site that the U.S. Senate has just reformed its filibuster rules significantly, given that its failure to do so nearly three years ago was one of several factors in the timing of our decision to suspend operations (and indeed, the predicted near-total gridlock, preventing policy from going far enough for us to discuss, did come to pass unfortunately). The new reforms are far from a cure-all, but it’s a nice turn of events as we return to the written medium.

To our new readers, particularly those who are listeners to my talk show on WVUD, welcome to our written commentary. My first radio show, Broadside Radio, was a spinoff of the old blog and ended concurrently. My new show started later that year and has in great part led me back to writing. Here you’ll get bonus related written content that didn’t make the final cut for the 45 minutes to an hour I have each week, and you’ll find a whole lot more as we think out loud (in writing, at least) on various new stories — some of which may develop into segments. If you like the show, you’ll definitely want to stick around for all the online-only content.

A note about older posts:

The site is officially launching today, December 1, 2013. Everything dated prior to December 1st has been re-located here from other sites, including Starboard Broadside, if it predates February 2011. These posts have not been modified or changed except for the occasional correction of a dead link or inclusion of an editor’s note about subsequent developments. We do not plan to move all or even most of the Starboard Broadside posts over, as this is not the same site and many of the posts are short and narrowly focused on something that was only momentarily topical. We will however, be transferring some of the more interesting and timeless items from the SBBS archives on an ad hoc basis as we find connections to past posts in current events.

Thank you all so much for reading Arsenal For Democracy. –Bill

My first book, over a year in the making, is now on sale at Amazon for $2.99 for Kindle! Get yourself ready for the Republican and Democratic National Conventions by learning about the importance of American Dream rhetoric in past presidential nomination acceptance speeches.

 

 
I Accept Your Nomination: American Dream Rhetoric in Presidential Nomination Acceptance Speeches, 1932-2008: William Humphrey: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

Note: That link goes to the U.S. Kindle store but if you are overseas and search for the title in your country’s Kindle store, you should be able to find it without any trouble.

Abstract

Since 1932, Democratic and Republican presidential nominees have delivered speeches in person at thirty-seven conventions, accepting their parties’ nominations for that election.

These speeches occur at the official nexus of primary and general election campaigns, and they are delivered to live audiences of supporters and millions of undecided voters from across the spectrum watching at home. They have developed into their own internally consistent and self-referential genre within American political rhetoric, filled with shared motifs, themes, and components.

Despite that, there has been only limited academic research on the speeches so far. This project examined, in particular, representations of the common motif of the American Dream across the genre in an effort to answer part of the question of how American political candidates (specifically presidential nominees in this case) appeal to ideas (such as the American Dream) in the American political culture.

Most references in the speeches to the American Dream, however, are oblique or indirect. I therefore conducted a content analysis and identified seven distinct “vehicles” that the nominees have used to introduce the concept into the speeches and define it. I argue that these references communicate information to voters about ideological positions and disposition of the nominees, which help voters form impressions to use when casting their votes.

It is hoped that this work will have both campaign and academic applications, and I conclude by suggesting some possibilities to that end. It is additionally hoped that this book will be accessible to general audiences.