Examining discursive change, however, provides a different explanation. The pattern of expansion and contraction of our franchise is not economically driven, rather, it is an issue of collective identity. All people are born into an identity. Some identities, like the color of our skin, is not a choice. Others, like our beliefs or our friend groups, are choices we make. The right to vote gives individuals an identity that extends beyond themselves. Because discourse is a consequence of voting rights, voting rights in turn, respond to discourse. Examining the process of suffrage reveals a unique pattern. Using the elements found in Tulis, Robertson, and Lakoff, evidence and patterns in Presidential inaugural addresses suggest that discursive …show more content…
In Moral Politics, Lakoff applied the nurturant parent and strict father models to describe liberals and conservatives in contemporary politics. Lakoff defined the nurturant parent as “mutual interaction and care” and “one of being cared for and cared about” (Lakoff, 125). The Strict Father model “takes as background the view that life is difficult and that the world is fundamentally dangerous” (Lakoff, 82). While he focused primarily on the effect of these models on politics following 1994, he failed to acknowledge the existence of elements in his models in earlier politics. In his first inaugural address, Monroe, like Jefferson, continued to recognize his flaws and bring himself closer to his citizens. He states, “having no pretensions to high and commanding claims of my predecessors, whose names are so much conspicuously identified with our Revolution, and who contributed so preeminently to promote is success, I consider myself rather as the instrument than the cause of the union which has prevailed in the late election” (Monroe, 1817). While the founding fathers saw themselves as the key to success, Monroe saw himself as a vehicle of the people. We see the building of a maternal relationship between Monroe and his people. Although not as explicitly, Madison uses the nurturant parent model, rather than strict father, as a means to promote proximal discourse. In his statement “a Government which protects every citizen in the full enjoyment of his rights, and is able to protect the nation against injustice from foreign powers,” he referred to himself and the government as the guardians of the people (Monroe, 1817). By using political discourse, he continued to expand the franchise so that every citizen can enjoy full freedom. Monroe is just one of many Presidents in the era between