Welcoming Their Hatred: Class Populism in Democratic Rhetoric in American Presidential Campaigns, 1932–2012

Abstract

Conventional wisdom holds that Democrats have abandoned the language of class populism. Using a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of hundreds of Democratic presidential campaign speeches over the 1932–2012 period, we revisit the received view. We provide evidence that Democratic presidential candidates have made increasingly frequent references to the wealthy; have employed a consistently adversarial tone in statements referring to the affluent; have made increasingly frequent criticisms of Republicans’ alleged favoritism toward the rich; and have increasingly linked references to the wealthy to promises to assist less fortunate Americans through programmatic reforms. Our findings indicate that class populism is alive and well in Democratic presidential campaign rhetoric.