Burlesque, Tragedy, and a (Potentially) "Yuuuge" "Breaking of a Frame": Donald Trump's Rhetoric as "Early Warning"?

The presidential campaign communications of Donald J. Trump, 2015-2016 were a rhetorical phenomenon. They scandalously broke from tradition yet fused together a winning coalition in America's gerrymandered Electoral College. Applying Kenneth Burke's dramatic genres of burlesque and factional tragedy, this study seeks to show how sharply dislocative Trump's discourse appeared to be. For Burkeans, burlesque and factional tragedy correlate with restorationist and revolutionary social movements, respectively, not with ordinary presidential politics. As a strategy of appeal, Trump's aggressive, eccentric, and successful manner of attack may presignify a new and possibly enduring political and party alignment.