Reagan’s speech framed national preservation in apocalyptic either-or terms

Evidence

Just days before the election, Reagan, who had only recently switched to the Republican Party, gave a televised address on Goldwater’s behalf. Linked by their ardent anticommunism and cowboy conservatism, Reagan defended Goldwater’s promise of peace through strength and denounced those who sought a utopian peace without victory, proponents of “appeasement” who thought the enemy might “forget his evil ways and learn to love us.” Americans had “a rendezvous with destiny.” Either they would preserve for their children “the last best hope of man on earth,” meaning the American nation, or they would step into “a thousand years of darkness.” — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 102

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘last best hope’ / ‘thousand years of darkness’ binary prefigures the apocalyptic framing Du Mez later ties to Trump-era evangelicals.