Reagan’s rhetoric shifted from authoritarian to reassuring as perceived threat declined

Evidence

By 1984, threat was lower. Compared with his platform in 1980, Reagan’s reelection appeal sounded a different trumpet, that is, his success in returning the nation to less threatening and more prosperous times, in contrast to an earlier emphasis on the failures of the past and the perils of the present. Thus, in his second inaugural speech in January 1985, Reagan’s (1988) tone became distinctly nonauthoritarian: With heart and hand, let us stand as one today… — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 844