Rhetorical Analysis Of Lyndon B Johnson's Great Society Speech

Some speeches shape nations. Great feats of rhetoric like "I Have a Dream" and the Gettysburg Address seize their readers with intense language and release them with powerful motivation. President Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 "Great Society" speech directed the American mindset for decades with his potent oration. Somehow, his speech to that University of Michigan crowd remains relevant today. How can a speech made by a barely-remembered president continue to affect American culture fifty years later? Johnson employs a structure of encouragement, warning, and action to construct a strong, moving argument.
Beginning positively, Johnson establishes a strong ethos. Johnson first humanizes himself and creates ethos with humor. One of his jokes, a jab at the Michigan education system, cites a supposed conversation with a citizen. This employs the common presidential tactic of the everyman opinion to develop a strong rapport. After his brief jokes, Johnson continues connecting with his audience by building up the American people, describing their, "imagination and [their] initiative" and declaring that America, "rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end
Whipping out some alarming statistics, Johnson demonstrates the pressing nature of the issues, "in our cities, in our countryside, and in our classrooms." He makes several predictions such as, "50 years from now… there will be 400 million Americans – four-fifths of them in urban areas… in the next 40 years we must rebuild the entire urban United States," and, "Today, 8 million adult Americans, more than the entire population of Michigan, have not finished 5 years of school. Nearly 20 million have not finished 8 years of school. Nearly 54 million – more than one-quarter of all America – have not even finished high school." Through these frightening facts and potential futures, Johnson builds his rhetoric a strong, factual