Presidents’ Limited Rhetoric on Race & Class in State of the Union Messages

• In Event: The US Presidency through the Lens of Race Relations

Abstract

How much attention to inequality and to equality appears in official public speeches, viz., presidential State of the Union Addresses (SOTUs) in the U.S.? Extending and reconsidering previous analysis regarding the ‘frequency’ and ‘framing’, we find surprisingly few indirect, much less direct, references to inequality as a social problem or equality as a political value or aspiration in these speeches (despite rising income inequality and recognition among political elites to structural inequalities of race and gender) over the period between 1970 and 2016. On the other hand, other prominent values in the American political tradition, such as economic individualism, receive considerable attention in these SOTUs. We consider the possible reasons for the relative scarcity of references to (in)equality and suggest avenues for further investigation.

Authors

• Rodney E. Hero, Arizona State University

• Morris E Levy, University of Southern California