The effects of Donald Trump

Abstract

What effect did Donald Trump have within and beyond America? This article assesses the policy impact of the President using the new layered framework for understanding the impact of political leaders, which considers their effect on the connected layers of societal structures, political institutions and policy. Firstly, the article extends the framework with a new typology of change. Secondly, it draws from the empirical articles in this volume to map his effects under the new typology and the layered approach. Trump is found to have largely acted as an accelerant for already existing causal processes in society, rather than providing a radical break with past politics in many areas. By undermining democratic institutions and encouraging hyperpartisanship within political institutions, for example, he was strengthening prevailing causal forces rather than constructing new forces. However, there were some more substantial effects such as the reversal of progress towards racial equality. In the layer of policy, he crucially failed to slow or reverse destructive pressures on the economy and public health or even fulfil major campaign promises on healthcare. Overall, Trump illustrates neither the strength nor weakness of the office of presidency, but instead the dangers of poor political leadership to citizens in America and beyond, especially in times of crisis.

United States politicians’ tone became more negative with 2016 primary campaigns

“…Taken together, these results objectively confirm the subjective impression held by most Americans 1 : recent years have indeed seen a profound and lasting change toward a more negative tone in US politicians’ language as reflected in online news, with the 2016 primary campaigns acting as a turning point. Moreover, contrary to some commentators’ assessment 13 , 14 , Donald Trump’s appearance in the political arena was linked to a directional change, rather than a continuation of previously existing trends in political tone. Whether these effects are fully driven by changes in politicians’ behavior or whether they are exacerbated by a shifting selection bias on behalf of the media remains an important open question (see “ Discussion ”).…”

“…In contrast, we analyze US politicians’ language as conveyed through the media directly, in an objective, data-driven manner, asking: First, is it true that US politicians’ tone has become more negative in recent years? Second, if so, did Donald Trump’s entering the political arena bring about an abrupt shift 11 , 12 , or did it merely continue a previously existing trend 13 , 14 ?…”

United States Politicians' Tone Became More Negative with 2016 Primary Campaigns

“…Taken together, these results objectively confirm the subjective impression held by most Americans (Pew Research Center 2019): recent years have indeed seen a profound and lasting change toward a more negative tone in US politicians' language as reflected in online news, with the 2016 primary campaigns acting as a turning point. Moreover, contrary to some commentators' assessment (Fritze and Jackson 2021;James 2021), Donald Trump's appearance in the political arena was linked to a directional change, rather than a continuation of previously existing trends in political tone. Whether these effects are fully driven by changes in politicians' behavior or whether they are exacerbated by a shifting selection bias on behalf of the media remains an important open question (see Discussion).…”

“…The sudden increase in negative language reported here was not only significant, but also strong; e.g., the frequency of negative emotion words jumped up by 1.6 pre-campaign standard deviations, or by 8% of the pre-campaign mean. The disruption becomes particularly stark when contrasted with the first 6.5 years of Obama's tenure, during which negative language had decreased steadily-at odds with a commonly held belief that Trump merely continued an older trend (Fritze and Jackson 2021;James 2021). The potential of negativity, incivility, and fear as tools to support political campaigns has been long known (Brooks and Geer 2007;Gerstlé and Nai 2019) and might explain the increase of negative language during the campaigns.…”

“…In contrast, we analyze US politicians' language directly, in an objective, data-driven manner, asking: First, is it true that US politicians' tone has become more negative in recent years? Second, if so, did Donald Trump's entering the political arena bring about an abrupt shift (Costello 2016;Crandall, Miller, and White 2018), or did it merely continue a previously existing trend (Fritze and Jackson 2021;James 2021)?…”