Journal: Region - Educational Research and Reviews DOI: 10.32629/rerr.v8i6.5540
Abstract
This study compares victim narratives in eight Democratic and Republican presidential and vice-presidential nomination-acceptance speeches from the 2020 and 2024 U.S. election cycles. Drawing on Entman's framing theory, it examines four dimensions: victim construction, blame attribution, moral evaluation, and proposed remedy. The analysis finds that Democratic speeches more often construct pluralized, rights-oriented victimhood by highlighting differentiated social groups and connecting harm to inequality, rights, and institutional protection. Republican speeches more often organize economic, cultural, and security grievances around ordinary Americans, workers, communities, and the nation, linking them to restorative themes such as order, sovereignty, and national protection. Despite these differences, both parties use victimhood to connect perceived harm with responsibility, moral judgment, political remedies, and electoral choice. The study therefore shows how competing victim narratives can serve as distinct but comparable forms of partisan mobilization in contemporary U.S. electoral discourse.
Keywords
framing theory; victim narratives; political discourse; Democratic Party; Republican Party
Funding
This paper is an outcome of the 2025 Graduate Research Innovation Project of Tianjin Foreign Studies University (No. 2025YJSSS014), “A Comparative Analysis of Victim Narratives in U.S. Left-and Right-Wing Political Speeches from Framing Theory (2020–2024)
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[5] Bar-Tal D, Chernyak-Hai L, Schori N, et al. A sense of self-perceived collective victimhood in intractable conflicts[J]. International Review of the Red Cross, 2009, 91(874): 229-258.
[6] Neerdaels J, Tröster C, Van Quaquebeke N, et al. Absolved from the neoliberal burden of responsibility: the effect of populist victim rhetoric on leader support[J]. Political Psychology, 2024, 45: 475-492.
[7] Mayer A, Parks P. Victimhood, partisan identities, and media consumption in the US[J]. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 2025, 13: 948-973.
[8] Goffman E. Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience[M]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974.
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[17] Lin J. From Barack Obama to Donald Trump: The evolution of moral appeals in national conventions[J]. Journal of Language and Politics, 2025, 24: 177-213.
[18] Jerit J. Issue framing and engagement: rhetorical strategy in public policy debates[J]. Political Behavior, 2008, 30: 1-24.
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