Leveling the playing field – Kommunikationsstrategien und Ungleichheitsnarrative des linken Diskurses im Umfeld der Demokratischen Partei der USA

Over the last decades, the U.S. has seen increasing income inequality and a widening wealth gap. Donald Trump’s presidency has deepened the political and cultural divide among Americans even more. As a result of these developments, many Americans have started to question the idea of the American Dream. For many, its promises of equal opportunity and upward social mobility no longer hold true. Young Americans, who are particularly affected by these trends, have started to demand big structural change in the American political and economic system. In line with that, they have championed progressive reform ideas and actors in the Democratic Party. While progressive politicians such as Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren did not secure the presidency in 2020, they were among the Democratic Party’s highest-polling contenders for a considerable portion of the campaign. Although Elizabeth Warren eventually dropped out of the presidential race, she often managed to drive its political agenda. Taking her strategic communication during the 2019/2020 primaries as an example, this paper analyzes which narratives of inequality are utilized in American progressive political discourse, how these are communicated, and which interpretations of economic inequality her strategic framing suggests. A corpus-based analysis of Warren’s framing reveals that two frames are prevalent in her discourse on inequality: the fairness-frame and the wealth-frame. These highlight to what extent the American Dream has proven unattainable to many Americans and indicate why an increasing number of voters support candidates who demand structural change in the US.