From Barack Obama to Donald Trump

Abstract

Abstract Do Democrats and Republicans appeal to different sets of moral foundations in their national convention speeches? Do they make efforts to frame their messages so that it is attractive to their base and moderate voters? This study examines the moral appeals that political elites use to communicate to their supporters. I analyze speeches starting from the 2008 to the 2020 Republican and Democrat National Conventions to see if there are differences in appeals to Harm, Fairness, Ingroup, Authority and Purity, which are tenets of the Moral Foundations Theory. I find that Republicans are more likely to appeal to Authority, and in 2020, Purity, while Democrats appeal mostly to Harm. Using qualitative content analyses, we see that both parties apply the moral language favored by the other side in their convention speeches on top of making appeals to moral foundations that are favored by their own base.