Examines the rhetorical themes through which President Reagan has, relative to his recent predecessors, unified the nation behind his leadership. Discusses how Reagan interweaves familiar American myths, symbols, values, and beliefs so skillfully in his rhetoric that any criticism of him or his policies is initially construed as an attack on the…

Updates the 1979 Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) benchmark survey of entitlement attitudes to which respondents in a national sample felt they were entitled to have 18 items--from crime-free communities to the right to use drugs for pleasure. The new survey reflects a heightened sense of well-being in 1984. (SRT)