Declaring War on the Home Front: Metaphor, Presidents, and the War on Drugs

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Abstract
Presidents often declare war against foreign enemies and win public support for such initiatives. Presidents also define domestic issues, and citizens look to presidents to construct a domestic agenda. Although successful in foreign applications, presidential invocations of the war metaphor have been less popular domestically. One exception is the war on drugs. Despite criticisms of drug control policies and use of the war metaphor to define our problems with drugs, no alternate metaphors have emerged to replace the bellicose perspective we apply to this social problem. By examining the nationally televised drug war declarations of former presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, I find that the presidential perquisite to define issues and the fusion of war with illness metaphors provide a familiar perspective on this complex issue—hence, its endurance. However, drug control policies became increasingly bellicose during the Reagan and Bush years, making the war on drugs appear to be a war against American...