Challenging Social Class In American Political Discourse: Bernie Sanders, Occupy Wall Street, and the New Discourse of Inequality

Abstract

This thesis examines how the dominant ideas about social class in American political discourse have been challenged by the rhetoric of the Bernie Sanders campaign in the 2016 presidential primary election. Through critical discourse analysis, I find that Bernie Sanders is the main bearer of a new discourse of inequality in American political and public discourse, which has its roots in the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 and previous developing strands from the 1990s and early 2000s.