Why Will Donald Trump Make America Great Again Why Is Donald Trump a Great President
How America Changed During Donald Trump'due south Presidency
Donald Trump stunned the political world in 2016 when he became the outset person without government or armed forces experience always to be elected president of the Usa. His four-twelvemonth tenure in the White House revealed extraordinary fissures in American society but left piffling doubt that he is a figure different any other in the nation's history.
Trump, the New York businessman and one-time reality TV show star, won the 2016 election subsequently a campaign that defied norms and commanded public attention from the moment it began. His arroyo to governing was equally unconventional.
Other presidents tried to unify the nation later turning from the campaign trail to the White House. From his outset days in Washington to his terminal, Trump seemed to revel in the political fight. He used his presidential megaphone to criticize a long list of perceived adversaries, from the news media to members of his own administration, elected officials in both political parties and foreign heads of land. The more than 26,000 tweets he sent as president provided an unvarnished, real-fourth dimension account of his thinking on a broad spectrum of issues and eventually proved then provocative that Twitter permanently banned him from its platform. In his final days in part, Trump became the showtime president e'er to exist impeached twice – the second time for inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the election he lost – and the nation'south first principal executive in more 150 years to pass up to attend his successor's inauguration.
Trump'southward policy record included major changes at habitation and abroad. He achieved a string of long-sought conservative victories domestically, including the biggest corporate tax cuts on record, the elimination of scores of ecology regulations and a reshaping of the federal judiciary. In the international loonshit, he imposed tough new immigration restrictions, withdrew from several multilateral agreements, forged closer ties with Israel and launched a tit-for-tat merchandise dispute with Cathay as part of a wider effort to address what he saw equally glaring imbalances in America's economic relationship with other countries.
Many questions almost Trump's legacy and his role in the nation's political time to come will take fourth dimension to answer. But some takeaways from his presidency are already clear from Pew Inquiry Center'southward studies in recent years. In this essay, we take a closer look at a few of the key societal shifts that accelerated – or emerged for the first fourth dimension – during the tenure of the 45th president.
Related: How America Changed During Barack Obama'southward Presidency
This exam of how the United States changed during Donald Trump's presidency is based on an analysis of public stance survey data from Pew Inquiry Centre, administrative information from government agencies, news reports and other sources. Links to the original sources of data – including the field dates, sample sizes and methodologies of individual surveys past the Center – are included wherever possible. Unless otherwise noted, all references to Republicans and Democrats in this analysis include independents who lean to each party.
Deeply partisan and personal divides
Trump'south status as a political outsider, his outspoken nature and his willingness to upend past customs and expectations of presidential behavior made him a constant focus of public attention, as well equally a source of deep partisan divisions.
Even before he took office, Trump divided Republicans and Democrats more whatsoever incoming principal executive in the prior three decades.1 The gap only grew more pronounced after he became president. An average of 86% of Republicans canonical of Trump'southward handling of the job over the grade of his tenure, compared with an boilerplate of just half dozen% of Democrats – the widest partisan gap in blessing for whatsoever president in the modern era of polling.2 Trump'southward overall approving rating never exceeded l% and savage to a low of just 29% in his final weeks in office, shortly after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol.
Republicans and Democrats weren't simply divided over Trump's handling of the job. They also interpreted many aspects of his graphic symbol and personality in fundamentally opposite ways. In a 2019 survey, at least three-quarters of Republicans said the president's words sometimes or often fabricated them feel hopeful, entertained, informed, happy and proud. Even larger shares of Democrats said his words sometimes or often fabricated them feel concerned, exhausted, angry, insulted and confused.
The potent reactions that Trump provoked appeared in highly personal contexts, besides. In a 2019 survey, 71% of Democrats who were single and looking for a relationship said they would definitely or probably not consider beingness in a committed relationship with someone who had voted for Trump in 2016. That far exceeded the 47% of single-and-looking Republicans who said they would not consider being in a serious human relationship with a Hillary Clinton voter.
Many Americans opted non to talk about Trump or politics at all. In 2019, well-nigh half of U.South. adults (44%) said they wouldn't experience comfortable talking about Trump with someone they didn't know well. A similar share (45%) said later on that yr that they had stopped talking politics with someone because of something that person had said.
In addition to the intense divisions that emerged over Trump personally, his tenure saw a further widening of the gulf between Republicans and Democrats over cadre political values and issues, including in areas that weren't especially partisan before his inflow.
In 1994, when Pew Enquiry Eye began asking Americans a series of x "values questions" on subjects including the role of government, ecology protection and national security, the boilerplate gap between Republicans and Democrats was 15 percentage points. By 2017, the beginning twelvemonth of Trump'southward presidency, the average partisan gap on those same questions had more than than doubled to 36 points, the issue of a steady, decades-long increase in polarization.
On some issues, in that location were bigger changes in thinking amid Democrats than among Republicans during Trump'due south presidency. That was particularly the case on topics such as race and gender, which gained new attention amongst the Black Lives Affair and #MeToo movements. In a 2020 survey that followed months of racial justice protests in the U.S., for instance, seventy% of Democrats said it is "a lot more than difficult" to be a Black person than to exist a White person in the U.S. today, upward from 53% who said the same thing just four years earlier. Republican attitudes on the same question changed little during that bridge, with just a small share agreeing with the Autonomous view.
On other problems, attitudes inverse more amid Republicans than among Democrats. One notable example related to views of higher didactics: Between 2015 and 2017, the share of Republicans who said colleges and universities were having a negative issue on the way things were going in the U.S. rose from 37% to 58%, even equally around seven-in-ten Democrats continued to say these institutions were having a positive effect.
Related: From #MAGA to #MeToo: A Look at U.Southward. Public Opinion in 2017
A dearth of shared facts and data
I of the few things that Republicans and Democratscouldhold on during Trump's tenure is that they didn't share the aforementioned set of facts. In a 2019 survey, around three-quarters of Americans (73%) said most Republican and Democratic voters disagreed not just over political plans and policies, merely over "basic facts."
Much of the disconnect between the parties involved the news media, which Trump routinely disparaged every bit "fake news" and the "enemy of the people." Republicans, in particular, expressed widespread and growing distrust of the press. In a 2019 survey, Republicans voiced more than distrust than trust in 2o of the 30 specific news outlets they were asked about, even as Democrats expressed more trust than distrust in 22 of those same outlets. Republicans overwhelmingly turned to and trusted one outlet included in the written report – Play a joke on News – even equally Democrats used and expressed trust in a wider range of sources. The study concluded that the two sides placed their trust in "two nearly inverse media environments."
Some of the media organizations Trump criticized most vocally saw the biggest increases in GOP distrust over time. The share of Republicans who said they distrusted CNN rose from 33% in a 2014 survey to 58% by 2019. The proportion of Republicans who said they distrusted The Washington Post and The New York Times rose 17 and 12 per centum points, respectively, during that span.3
In addition to their criticisms of specific news outlets, Republicans also questioned the broader motives of the media. In surveys fielded over the course of 2018 and 2019, Republicans were far less likely than Democrats to say that journalists act in the best interests of the public, have high ethical standards, forestall political leaders from doing things they shouldn't and deal fairly with all sides. Trump's staunchest GOP supporters often had the most negative views: Republicans who strongly approved of Trump, for example, were much more likely than those who only somewhat canonical or disapproved of him to say journalists have very low ethical standards.
Apart from the growing partisan polarization over the news media, Trump's time in office also saw the emergence of misinformation as a concerning new reality for many Americans.
Half of U.South. adults said in 2019 that made-up news and information was a very large problem in the country, exceeding the shares who said the same thing about racism, illegal immigration, terrorism and sexism. Around two-thirds said fabricated-upwardly news and information had a big touch on public confidence in the government (68%), while half or more said information technology had a major issue on Americans' confidence in each other (54%) and political leaders' ability to get work done (51%).
Misinformation played an important role in both the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 presidential election. Almost two-thirds of U.Due south. adults (64%) said in April 2020 that they had seen at least some fabricated-upward news and information about the pandemic, with around half (49%) saying this kind of misinformation had caused a great deal of confusion over the basic facts of the outbreak. In a survey in mid-November 2020, six-in-x adults said fabricated-upward news and information had played a major role in the but-ended election.
Conspiracy theories were an particularly salient course of misinformation during Trump'south tenure, in many cases amplified past the president himself. For example, virtually half of Americans (47%) said in September 2020 that they had heard or read a lot or a little about the drove of conspiracy theories known as QAnon, up from 23% before in the year.4 Virtually of those aware of QAnon said Trump seemed to support the theory'south promoters.
Trump frequently made disproven or questionable claims as president. News and fact-checking organizations documented thousands of his false statements over four years, on subjects ranging from the coronavirus to the economic system. Perhaps none were more consequential than his repeated assertion of widespread fraud in the 2020 ballot he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Even after courts around the country had rejected the claim and all 50 states had certified their results, Trump continued to say he had won a "landslide" victory. The false merits gained widespread currency among his voters: In a January 2021 survey, 3-quarters of Trump supporters incorrectly said he was definitely or probably the rightful winner of the ballot.
New concerns over American democracy
Throughout his tenure, Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of democratic institutions, from the free press to the federal judiciary and the electoral process itself. In surveys conducted between 2016 and 2019, more than half of Americans said Trump had little or no respect for the nation'southward democratic institutions and traditions, though these views, too, split sharply along partisan lines.
The 2020 election brought concerns most commonwealth into much starker relief. Even before the election, Trump had cast doubt on the security of mail service-in voting and refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the result that he lost. When he did lose, he refused to publicly concede defeat, his campaign and allies filed dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits to claiming the results and Trump personally pressured state government officials to retroactively tilt the issue in his favor.
The weeks of legal and political challenges culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, when Trump addressed a crowd of supporters at a rally outside the White House and again falsely claimed the ballot had been "stolen." With Congress meeting the aforementioned day to certify Biden'due south win, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attack that left five people dead and forced lawmakers to be evacuated until gild could exist restored and the certification could be completed. The House of Representatives impeached Trump a calendar week afterward on a accuse of inciting the violence, with 10 Republicans joining 222 Democrats in support of the decision.
Most Americans placed at to the lowest degree some blame on Trump for the riot at the Capitol, including 52% who said he bore a lot of responsibility for it. Over again, nonetheless, partisans' views differed widely: 81% of Democrats said Trump bore a lot of responsibility, compared with just eighteen% of Republicans.
Even every bit he repeatedly cast uncertainty on the democratic procedure, Trump proved to be an enormously galvanizing figure at the polls. Nearly 160 million Americans voted in 2020, the highest estimated turnout rate among eligible voters in 120 years, despite widespread changes in voting procedures brought on by the pandemic. Biden received more than 81 million votes and Trump received more than 74 million, the highest and 2d-highest totals in U.S. history. Turnout in the 2018 midterm election, the first after Trump took office, besides set a modernistic-twenty-four hours tape.
Pew Enquiry Centre surveys catalogued the high stakes that voters perceived, particularly in the run-upward to the 2020 election. Only before the election, around ix-in-ten Trump and Biden supporters said at that place would be "lasting damage" to the nation if the other candidate won, and around eight-in-ten in each group said they disagreed with the other side not just on political priorities, simply on "core American values and goals."
Before in the twelvemonth, 83% of registered voters said information technology "really mattered" who won the ballot, the highest percent for any presidential election in at least two decades. Trump himself was a articulate motivating factor for voters on both sides: 71% of Trump supporters said before the election that their selection was more of a votefor the president than confronting Biden, while 63% of Biden supporters said their option was more of a voteagainst Trump than for his opponent.
A reckoning over racial inequality
Racial tensions were a constant undercurrent during Trump'southward presidency, ofttimes intensified by the public statements he made in response to high-profile incidents.
The decease of George Floyd, in particular, brought race to the surface in a manner that few other recent events have. The videotaped killing of the unarmed, 46-twelvemonth-old Black man by a White police officer in Minneapolis was among several police killings that sparked national and international protests in 2020 and led to an outpouring of public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, including from corporations, universities and other institutions. In a survey shortly after Floyd's decease in May, two-thirds of U.S. adults – including majorities beyond all major racial and indigenous groups – voiced support for the motility, and use of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag surged to a record loftier on Twitter.
Attitudes began to change as the protests wore on and sometimes turned violent, drawing precipitous condemnation from Trump. By September, back up for the Black Lives Thing movement had slipped to 55% – largely due to decreases among White adults – and many Americans questioned whether the nation'due south renewed focus on race would lead to changes to accost racial inequality or improve the lives of Black people.
Race-related tensions erupted into public view earlier in Trump's tenure, too. In 2017, White nationalists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a Amalgamated statue amid a broader push to eliminate such memorials from public spaces beyond the country. The rally led to fierce clashes in the city's streets and the death of a 32-year-old woman when a White nationalist deliberately drove a automobile into a crowd of people. Tensions also arose in the National Football League equally some players protested racial injustices in the U.S. by kneeling during the national canticle. The brandish prompted a backfire amid some who saw it every bit disrespectful to the American flag.
In all of these controversies and others, Trump weighed in from the White Firm, but typically not in a mode that almost Americans saw every bit helpful. In a summer 2020 survey, for example, 6-in-x U.Due south. adults said Trump had delivered the wrong message in response to the protests over Floyd'south killing. That included effectually iv-in-ten adults (39%) who said Trump had delivered thecompletely wrong message.
More broadly, Americans viewed Trump'southward bear upon on race relations every bit far more negative than positive. In an early 2019 poll, 56% of adults said Trump had made race relations worse since taking office, compared with only 15% who said he had made progress toward improving relations. In the aforementioned survey, around two-thirds of adults (65%) said it had become more mutual for people in the U.S. to express racist or racially insensitive views since his election.
The public also perceived Trump as too close with White nationalist groups. In 2019, a majority of adults (56%) said he had done also footling to distance himself from these groups, while 29% said he had done about the correct amount and seven% said he had done too much. These opinions were nearly the aforementioned as in December 2016, before he took office.
While Americans overall gave Trump much more negative than positive marks for his handling of race relations, there were consistent divisions along racial, ethnic and partisan lines. Blackness, Hispanic and Asian adults were often more critical of Trump's impact on race relations than White adults, as were Democrats when compared with Republicans. For case, while an overwhelming majority of Democrats (83%) said in 2019 that Trump had washed too little to distance himself from White nationalist groups, a majority of Republicans (56%) said he had done most the right amount.
White Republicans, in detail, rejected the thought of widespread structural racism in the U.South. and saw too much accent on race. In September 2020, around eight-in-10 White Republicans (79%) said the bigger problem was people seeing racial discrimination where information technology doesn't exist, rather than people non seeing discrimination where it actually does exist. The opinions of White Democrats on the same question were nearly the contrary.
A defining public health and economic crisis
Every presidency is shaped by outside events, and Trump's will undoubtedly be remembered for the enormous toll the coronavirus pandemic took on the nation's public health and economic system.
More than 400,000 Americans died from COVID-19 between the beginning of the pandemic and when Trump left office, with fatality counts sometimes exceeding 4,000 people a day – a price more than severe than theoverall cost of the terrorist attacks of Sept. eleven, 2001, or the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December. seven, 1941. Trump himself contracted the coronavirus in the home stretch of his campaign for reelection, equally did dozens of White Business firm and campaign staff and members of his family.
The far-reaching public health effects of the virus were reflected in a survey in November 2020, when more than than half of U.Due south. adults (54%) said they personally knew someone who had been hospitalized or died due to COVID-nineteen. The shares were even higher among Black (71%) and Hispanic (61%) adults.
At the same time, the pandemic had a disastrous effect on the economy. Trump and Barack Obama together had presided over the longest economic expansion in American history, with the U.S. unemployment rate at a l-year low of 3.five% as recently as February 2020. By Apr 2020, with businesses effectually the state endmost their doors to foreclose the spread of the virus, unemployment had soared to a mail-World War 2 high of 14.viii%. Even after considerable employment gains after in the year, Trump was the first modern president to leave the White House with fewer jobs in the U.South. than when he took office.
The economic consequences of the virus, similar its public wellness repercussions, hit some Americans harder than others. Many upper-income workers were able to continue doing their jobs remotely during the outbreak, even as lower-income workers suffered widespread chore losses and pay cuts. The remarkable resiliency of U.S. stock markets was a rare bright spot during the downturn, just one that had its ain implications for economical inequality: Going into the outbreak, upper-income adults were far more than likely than lower-income adults to be invested in the market.
The pandemic clearly underscored and exacerbated America's partisan divisions. Democrats were consistently much more likely than Republicans to see the virus equally a major threat to public health, while Republicans were far more likely than Democrats to meet it as exaggerated and overblown. The 2 sides disagreed on public health strategies ranging from mask wearing to contact tracing.
The outbreak also had important consequences for America's paradigm in the world. International views of the U.S. had already plummeted after Trump took office in 2017, but attitudes turned even more negative amid a widespread perception that the U.S. had mishandled the initial outbreak. The share of people with a favorable opinion of the U.S. vicious in 2020 to record or almost-record lows in Canada, France, Frg, Japan, the Great britain and other countries. Across all 13 nations surveyed, a median of just xv% of adults said the U.S. had done a adept job responding to COVID-xix, well below the median share who said the same thing near their own country, the Globe Wellness Arrangement, the European Union and China.
At a much more personal level, many Americans expected the coronavirus outbreak to accept a lasting impact on them. In an August 2020 survey, 51% of U.Southward. adults said they expected their lives to remain inverse in major ways even after the pandemic is over.
Looking ahead
The aftershocks of Donald Trump's one-of-a-kind presidency volition take years to place into full historical context. Information technology remains to exist seen, for example, whether his disruptive make of politics will be adopted by other candidates for office in the U.South., whether other politicians can activate the same coalition of voters he energized and whether his positions on free trade, immigration and other problems will exist reflected in authorities policy in the years to come.
Some of the near pressing questions, particularly in the backwash of the attack on the Capitol and Trump's subsequent bipartisan impeachment, concern the future of the Republican Party. Some Republicans have moved away from Trump, only many others have continued to fight on his behalf, including by voting to reject the electoral votes of two states won by Biden.
The GOP's management could depend to a considerable degree on what Trump does side by side. Around ii-thirds of Americans (68%) said in January 2021 that they wouldnot like to see Trump continue to exist a major political figure in the years to come, but Republicans were divided by ideology. More half of self-described moderate and liberal Republicans (56%) said they preferred for him to leave the political stage, while 68% of conservatives said they wanted him to remain a national political figure for many years to come.
For his part, Joe Biden has some advantages as he begins his tenure. Democrats have majorities – albeit extraordinarily narrow ones – in both legislative chambers of Congress. Other recent periods of single-political party control in Washington accept resulted in the enactment of major legislation, such equally the $1.v trillion tax cut packet that Trump signed in 2017 or the wellness care overhaul that Obama signed in 2010. Biden begins his presidency with generally positive assessments from the American public about his Cabinet appointments and the job he has done explaining his policies and plans for the future. Early surveys evidence that he inspires broad conviction amongst people in iii European countries that have long been important American allies: France, Deutschland and the Great britain.
Still, the new administration faces obvious challenges on many fronts. The coronavirus pandemic volition continue in the months alee as the vast majority of Americans remain unvaccinated. The economic system is likely to struggle until the outbreak is nether control. Polarization in the U.S. is not likely to change dramatically, nor is the partisan gulf in views of the news media or the spread of misinformation in the historic period of social media. The global challenges of climate change and nuclear proliferation remain stark.
The nation's 46th president has vowed to unite the country as he moves forrard with his policy agenda. Few would question the formidable nature of the job.
Title photo: President Donald Trump and get-go lady Melania Trump board Air Forcefulness Ane for his last time as president on Jan. 20, 2021. (Pete Marovich–Puddle/Getty Images)
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/2021/01/29/how-america-changed-during-donald-trumps-presidency/