it if you try. […] That’s the idea of America. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter where you come from. It doesn’t matter what your last name is. You can live out the American Dream. […] Our goal isn’t just to put people back to work—although that’s priority number one—it is to build an economy where that work pays off. An economy where everyone, whether you are starting a business or punching a clock, can see your hard work and responsibility rewarded. And third, the president leavened this individualist vision of economic success with a New Deal-style reference to “that basic American bargain that makes us the greatest country on Earth.” He reminded the crowd: “The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.” His inclusion of the phrase “The point is…” at the start of this statement is telling. Obama had preceded it with remarks that were perhaps intended to serve as a build-up for his key declaration that we are all in this together. However, these preceding lines were fragmented, seemingly unscripted, and lacking in clarity and direction—thereby demanding the insertion of “The point is…” at their conclusion to bring needed coherence: There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked
American Dream’” (2012). In his article for Slate, titled “Memewatch: Did Obama Say That Successful People Didn’t Earn What They Have?,” David Weigel concluded by quipping: “High-level political journalism means waiting for politicians to say things the wrong way, and then making progressively bigger fusses about that” (2012). He was prescient: within the week Obama’s opponents, through mass and social media, had successfully transformed “you didn’t build that” into a full-blown political spectacle. The Romney campaign contributed to building the momentum of this spectacle by holding twenty-four events on July 25 with small business owners in multiple swing states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Nevada). They also produced a television advertisement spotlighting small business owners and their visceral reactions to Obama’s remark (see Horsley 2012). Additionally, a new section of the official Romney campaign website called “Built By Us” was created and “Built By Us” merchandise was produced. These t-shirts, posters, and buttons displaying slogans such as “Government didn’t build my business, I did” were pitched by Romney’s son, Tagg, who explained: “Built By Us is a rallying cry, and also a celebration of the people who truly make America work,” adding, “I think we can all agree we need a President who embraces success, instead of demonizing it” (quoted in CNN.com 2012). While these “pseudo-events” caught the attention of mass media, the oppositional narrative quickly took on a life of its own in the hands of conservative radio and cable TV commentators, social media, and the blogosphere. Within a day, #StupidThingsObamaWouldSay became one of the most popular hashtags on Twitter, with tweets parodying Obama’s remark (“If you & your wife had a baby, you didn’t father it. Others did.” “If you have an Olympic Gold Medal in an individual event, you didn’t win it. Others did.”). The Daily Beast named it the
The third dimension includes variations of an interpretive approach that sidelines instrumental concerns to instead focus on analyzing the role of language as a maker of meaning. According to Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Dvora Yanow, an interpretive approach seeks “to understand what a thing ‘is’ by learning what it does, how particular people use it, in particular contexts” (2012, 23). Therefore, when examining political language, the aim is explore what it means to particular actors in particular contexts and then consider explanations of these attributions of meaning. The fundamental question asked by interpretive scholars is: How does it mean? This approach is best exemplified in the work of Murray Edelman (1977, 1988) and its applications to the study of presidential rhetoric are best represented by David Zarefsky’s (2002, 2004a, 2004b) notion of “presidential definition.” My project aims to demonstrate the explanatory value of this third approach. As seen in the case study above, political language was employed as a strategic instrument—both Obama and Romney sought to define the other by creating strawmen of their respective arguments. Their purpose was to raise questions about their opponent’s character and beliefs in efforts to mobilize their political bases. And yet, while insightful, this instrumental understanding does not and cannot address the question of how these competing narratives made meaning or why the rhetorical response to Obama’s “you didn’t build that” remark transformed into a formidable and lasting political spectacle. By contrast, an interpretive approach “potentially reveals (or raises questions about) assumed, unspoken or taken-for-granted ideas about a range of values, beliefs, and/or feelings,” which “can tell us a lot about the world of which it is part” (Schwartz-Shea and Yanow 2012, 23). Drawing on this approach, we can explore the “you didn’t build that” episode as a window through which we might better view some of the features and dynamics of contemporary
became further entrenched during the Reagan Revolution, and has bloomed into the Tea rhetoric of politics today (Holtzman 2013). The fear of big government discourse presents itself in political language in three characteristic ways—each on display in the rhetorical reaction to Obama’s “you didn’t build that” remark: (1) Fear-mongering claims that conflates an active federal government with a loss of individual liberty; (2) the portrayal of those who favor a more active federal government as socialists (or communists); (3, and the depiction of both active government and those who advocate for it as fundamentally “un-American” (Holtzman 2013). By drawing on these rhetorical devices, thereby grounding their narrative in this fear of big government discourse, Obama’s opponents were able to make his remark meaningful—in fact, threatening—to those for whom this conception of active government as the enemy of individual freedom rings true. These characteristic manifestations of the discourse are clear in the oppositional narrative crafted to meaningfully define Obama’s remark. In an interview with CNBC on July 23, ten days after Obama’s remark, Romney said of the president’s views (as Romney portrayed them): This is an ideology which says hey, we’re all the same here, [government] ought to take from all and give to one another and that achievement, individual initiative and risk-taking and success are not to be rewarded as they have in the past (2012b). To ensure that the implications of his point were clear, Romney summed up by declaring: “It’s a very strange and, in some respects, foreign to the American experience type of philosophy” (2012b).
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