(De)constructing political selves: The discursive creation and defense of coherence by a first‐time congressional candidate

This paper explores the ways in which the political self of congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio‐Cortez was discursively constructed in selected content that she created, produced, and shared with her followers. Specifically, following a brief review of the literature on the construction of political selves, a description of the candidate, and a discussion of the methods, this study describes the application of interactional sociolinguistic approaches to examine how Ocasio‐Cortez strove to construct her political identity and to create existential and historical coherence, and to reposition her identity and reframe her narrative in response to attacks on this coherence.