“There Are Certain Things Only Government Can Do”: Barack Obama’s Rhetoric on Food Safety and the Role of Government

Abstract

In January 2011, President Barack Obama signed the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into law, representing the most significant upgrade to U.S. food safety laws since the 1930s. In this essay, we explore Obama’s rhetoric on food safety by analyzing his remarks prior to and directly following the passage of the FSMA. As a collection, these texts offer insight into Obama’s reinterpretation of the role of government. Obama’s pragmatic rhetoric on food safety demonstrates how the issue of food safety can be used to argue for a broader and more responsible role of government writ large.

Keywords:

• Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)
• Barack Obama
• Role of Government
• Presidential Rhetoric
• Public Policy Discourse

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. This assertion is a reference to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 which replaced and expanded the original U.S. food safety law, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (Blum, 2018).

2. For instance, during the most recent and longest government shutdown that lasted from December 2018 through January 2019, food safety was one of the first issues of concern raised (Kaplan, 2019).

3. By role of government, we are referring to broad themes of whether government should, to put it simply, do more or less in terms of government regulations and/or government programs (see Harwood, 2008; Klein, 2008; Meyerson, 2008; Vanden Heuval, 2008; Will, 2008).

4. We focus our analysis on this time period as a way to explore Obama’s official remarks prior to and during the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act.

5. Early on in his administration, Obama positioned himself as a “pragmatic progressive” (Davis, 2009; Hamburger & Wallsten, 2009). Building on this theme, Danisch (2012) argues that Obama’s pragmatic positionality works hand-in-hand with his advocacy of progressive reforms.

6. Relatedly, in the debates surrounding the passage of the National Housing Act of 1934, Conners (2017) argued that use of the trope “modernization” encouraged “a sense of destiny, rationality, and expediency” (p. 432). Obama’s (2009b) use of “modernizing” could be seen as hearkening back to the rhetoric of modernity frequently used in legislation during the 1930s.

7. In fact, in October of 2017 President Trump stopped the practice of airing the weekly presidential addresses due to issues of “relevancy” (Herman, 2017: p. 1).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth A. Petre

Elizabeth A. Petre (Ph.D., Southern Illinois University Carbondale) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

James T. Petre

James T. Petre (Ph.D., Southern Illinois University Carbondale) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.