Reagan's "Evil Empire" Speech: Fear Appeals and Metaphor

Background and Context

Ronald Reagan delivered the speech now known as the "Evil Empire" speech before the National Association of Evangelicals in Florida on March 8, 1983. Reagan had courted the Christian conservative movement throughout his campaigns for the presidency, and he regarded Evangelicals and all conservative Christians as an important constituency. Like Reagan, they were staunchly pro-life. Reagan considered himself a Presbyterian, and Presbyterians have historically viewed their faith as closely linked to the evangelical tradition.

Rhetorical Strategy and Audience

Two powerful rhetorical concepts are present throughout Reagan's speech: fear appeals and metaphor. His embedded rhetorical strategy was twofold. First, he wanted to please and inspire the national Evangelical movement to lobby their legislators in support of his political agenda. Second, he wanted to use the occasion — speaking before a major conservative religious organization — to publicly condemn what he identified as the earthly embodiment of evil: the Soviet Union.

Beyond these two rhetorical devices, Reagan made a deliberate effort to ingratiate himself with the conservative religious activists in the crowd, and with those who would later encounter the speech through videotape reproductions in churches. He did so by stating that he and First Lady Nancy Reagan felt the audience's prayers.

Metaphor: God, Democracy, and Political Identity

By invoking Abraham Lincoln — and implicitly comparing himself to Lincoln — Reagan executed his first metaphor with considerable skill. The implication was that, like Lincoln, one of the most revered American presidents, Reagan too kneels in prayer. Simply introducing Lincoln's name into the address made the point effectively. Shortly thereafter, Reagan also quoted George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, completing a trinity of the most celebrated figures in American presidential history.

In his build-up to the declaration that the Soviet Union is an "evil empire," Reagan worked with passion to establish that "freedom" and "God" are inseparable. He argued that democracy and God go hand in hand, and that nations which do not honor God are, by implication, evil. Reagan's reference to William Penn — a pacifist and a Quaker — was taken somewhat out of context, but it served his purposes well. "If we are not to be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants," was the line Reagan employed. This invocation carried a strong fear appeal, and before a conservative Christian audience it was particularly effective. (It is worth noting, for historical context, that William Penn also called the Roman Catholic Church "The Whore of Babylon" and characterized Puritans as "hypocrites.")

Reagan then brought God into the speech as a metaphor for his own political viewpoint. His political position, he explained, is grounded in "respect for the rule of law under God," and he proceeded to attack those whose "value system is radically different from that of most Americans." These were people who believed they were "freeing us from the superstitions of the past" and who, in Reagan's framing, had "louder voices" than the Christians. Among the bad actors Reagan alluded to were newspaper editors, but the broader implication was that those who were pro-choice sought to "water down traditional values and even abrogate the original terms of American democracy." (To abrogate means to abolish by authoritative action.) This constituted a clear fear appeal: if the conservative Christian movement failed to stand up to liberals pushing progressive policies on abortion, those liberals would ultimately destroy democracy itself.

Conclusion

Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech stands as a masterclass in political rhetoric aimed at a specific audience. By weaving together fear appeals and metaphor — from the invocation of revered founding presidents to the martyrdom story of a father and his daughters — Reagan constructed a moral universe in which God and democracy are inseparable, and in which nations that reject God must, by extension, be ruled by Lucifer. The Soviet Union, rendered visible and tangible, became the earthly face of that evil. Whether one agrees with the argument or not, the rhetorical architecture of the speech was both deliberate and effective.