The President on Twitter: Does @realDonaldTrump Hide Behind the Phenomenon #rightwingpopulism2.0?

Twitter has emerged as Donald Trump’s preferred method of communication. As Commander in Tweets, Trump uses the platform to promote and defend himself as well as to bypass the traditional media to speak directly to the American people – and the whole world. The word “populist” is regularly applied to the President of the United States, but does the populist-label really apply to Trump? This study analyzes 550 tweets of Donald Trump during his three different political statuses, namely as Nominee, President-elect and President, to define his online communication style. The analysis of the tweets proceeds by means of a discourse analysis based on a Grounded Theory methodology (according to Corbin/Strauss). The analytical framework is built and further developed through Ruth Wodak’s so-called “topoi of Right-Wing Populist discourses”. An analysis of these tweets demonstrates that Donald Trump uses rhetoric of Right-Wing Populism within his online communication. In fact, his communication style is dominated by certain topoi. Furthermore, Trump employs positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation to further his agenda. This study is part of a growing body of research on both the connection of social media and populism, and the Trump Twitter phenomenon. Therefore, this project will contribute to future research on similar topics.