Jfk what is a liberal speech

He bolstered old allies and aligned the U. While John F. Kennedy would make many conservatives proud, he would not entirely fit into the modern Republican mold today. For example, he supported raising the minimum wage and federal grants for more projects in rural areas. Additionally, the debate over his ideology is somewhat muddled by the shifting definitions of what conservatism and liberalism were.

If he returned to see the Democratic Party of , he would find it unrecognizable from his party in The key policies he held dear have been extinguished by Democrats today.

John Graber [email protected] is a senior majoring in history and political science. Kennedy was known for his eloquence as a public speaker, perhaps more than any modern president. But what made him so effective? Murphy spoke with News Bureau social sciences editor Craig Chamberlain about what he found. What did Kennedy and his speechwriters do that made his speeches memorable, especially for his earlys audience?

John Kennedy's speeches were musical in a number of ways. For one thing, he exploited the rhetorical resources of balance and rhythm. His most famous speeches, his most famous phrases, bounced like the lyrics to songs.

Some movement leaders seethed with frustration over his slow pace. We hear nowadays that he ran to the right of Richard Nixon on national security in —a claim supported chiefly by his invocation of the so-called missile gap. Overall, in , it was Kennedy who expressed skepticism about the extension of military forces around the globe.

He was, to be sure, a staunch anti-communist, and not averse to using hard power. But his famous call to steel the nation for the cold war conflict was a prologue to the exposition of a more hopeful, conciliatory policy. Press accounts treated it as a summons to work toward peace. In office, Kennedy also preferred diplomacy to military intervention. His wariness of using force led him to deny the CIA-supported Cuban rebels the sufficient air cover they needed at the Bay of Pigs; 18 months later, it counseled him to buck his military chiefs and negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet missiles.

He rejected initial calls to get involved in Laos, and his frequently voiced doubts about the effectiveness of U. Following the Cuban missile crisis, moreover, Kennedy redoubled efforts to pull back from the brink. John F Kennedy is immensely popular, even to this day. His enormous well of public approbation is, of course, due to his full-throated embrace of liberal values. As David Greenberg writes for the New Republic :.

The War on Poverty an idea he had rolled out during the campaign sought to alleviate penury, especially among the elderly, by pushing for Medicare and expanded Social Security benefits. The President's Commission on the Status of Women endorsed workplace equality, child care facilities for working women, paid maternity leave, better Social Security benefits for widows, and equal pay for comparable work.

Federal employees got collective bargaining. Or maybe Kennedy still holds a place of honour in American memory because he enthusiastically supported conservative values. Far from being a big-spending liberal, Kennedy was a conservative by the standards of both his time and today.