Tweets are Donald Trump's quickest and most frequently employed way to send shockwaves. Tweets allow the user to respond quickly to the Kairos of developing situations-an advantage to the medium, but perhaps also a disadvantage, as Trump's 3am and 4am tweets tend to show. In this paper, we apply the three classical modes of rhetoric-forensic/judicial, deliberative, and epideictic/ceremonial rhetoric-to see how the modes manifest in Donald Trump's tweets as a presidential candidate, as President-Elect, and as President. Does the use of these three modes shift as Trump's rhetorical situation and especially subject position shift? Besides looking for quantitative changes in Trump's favored modes over time, our qualitative analysis includes representative examples and interesting examples of Trump's use of each mode (and combinations of them) during each time period.
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