The Persistence of a Nuclear Threat:
Testament (1983) and Red Dawn (1984) as
Cultural Narratives of the Reagan Years
In his 1985 State of the Union address, President Ronald Wilson Reagan,
basking in the glow of his electoral landslide victory over Democratic challenger
Walter Mondale, claimed a mandate for his vision for a Second American
Revolution. The Presidential oratory envisioned
... a revolution carrying us to new heights of progress by
pushing back frontiers of knowledge and space, a revolution
of spirit that taps the soul of America; enabling us to summon
greater strength than we have ever known; and a revolution
that carries beyond our shores the golden promise of human
freedom in a world at peace.1
Much of the popular support accorded the Reagan presidency was due to the
administration’s skillful manipulation of a domestic agenda which championed
tax cuts, government deregulation, dismantling the welfare state, and providing
market solutions to the nation’s economic concerns. On the other hand, the
expansionist rhetoric of Reagan’s 1985 State of the Union message indicated
that the so-called Reagan revolution assumed an activist foreign policy in which
American perceptions of democracy and market solutions would be aggressively
pursued and imposed upon the world stage. )Q