Tv Showing Donald Trump Asking His Family "if He Should Run for President"?
How America Changed During Donald Trump'south Presidency
Donald Trump stunned the political world in 2016 when he became the kickoff person without government or military experience ever to be elected president of the United States. His four-year tenure in the White House revealed boggling fissures in American society but left little doubt that he is a figure unlike any other in the nation's history.
Trump, the New York businessman and former reality TV testify star, won the 2016 ballot after a campaign that defied norms and commanded public attention from the moment it began. His arroyo to governing was as anarchistic.
Other presidents tried to unify the nation after turning from the campaign trail to the White House. From his first days in Washington to his last, Trump seemed to revel in the political fight. He used his presidential megaphone to criticize a long listing of perceived adversaries, from the news media to members of his ain assistants, elected officials in both political parties and foreign heads of state. The more than 26,000 tweets he sent equally president provided an unvarnished, real-fourth dimension account of his thinking on a broad spectrum of issues and eventually proved so provocative that Twitter permanently banned him from its platform. In his final days in office, Trump became the first president always to exist impeached twice – the 2nd time for inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol during the certification of the election he lost – and the nation'southward first chief executive in more than than 150 years to refuse to nourish his successor's inauguration.
Trump's policy record included major changes at home and abroad. He achieved a string of long-sought conservative victories domestically, including the biggest corporate taxation cuts on tape, the elimination of scores of environmental regulations and a reshaping of the federal judiciary. In the international arena, 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 China as part of a wider effort to address what he saw as glaring imbalances in America'south economic relationship with other countries.
Many questions nigh Trump's legacy and his office in the nation's political futurity volition take time to reply. Merely some takeaways from his presidency are already clear from Pew Research Middle's studies in recent years. In this essay, nosotros 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 Inverse During Barack Obama's Presidency
This examination of how the United States changed during Donald Trump's presidency is based on an analysis of public opinion survey data from Pew Enquiry Center, authoritative data from government agencies, news reports and other sources. Links to the original sources of information – including the field dates, sample sizes and methodologies of individual surveys by 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.
Securely partisan and personal divides
Trump's status as a political outsider, his outspoken nature and his willingness to upend by customs and expectations of presidential behavior made him a constant focus of public attention, as well as a source of deep partisan divisions.
Even before he took office, Trump divided Republicans and Democrats more than than any incoming master executive in the prior three decades.one The gap only grew more pronounced afterward he became president. An boilerplate of 86% of Republicans approved of Trump'south handling of the job over the course of his tenure, compared with an average of just 6% of Democrats – the widest partisan gap in approval for whatever president in the modern era of polling.2 Trump's overall approval rating never exceeded l% and roughshod to a depression of but 29% in his final weeks in office, shortly later a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol.
Republicans and Democrats weren't just divided over Trump's handling of the task. They also interpreted many aspects of his character and personality in fundamentally opposite ways. In a 2019 survey, at to the lowest degree iii-quarters of Republicans said the president's words sometimes or often made them feel hopeful, entertained, informed, happy and proud. Even larger shares of Democrats said his words sometimes or oft fabricated them experience concerned, wearied, angry, insulted and confused.
The strong reactions that Trump provoked appeared in highly personal contexts, too. In a 2019 survey, 71% of Democrats who were single and looking for a relationship said they would definitely or probably not consider existence 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 relationship with a Hillary Clinton voter.
Many Americans opted not to talk nearly Trump or politics at all. In 2019, about half of U.Due south. adults (44%) said they wouldn't feel comfy talking about Trump with someone they didn't know well. A similar share (45%) said later on that year that they had stopped talking politics with someone because of something that person had said.
In improver to the intense divisions that emerged over Trump personally, his tenure saw a further widening of the gulf between Republicans and Democrats over core political values and issues, including in areas that weren't especially partisan before his arrival.
In 1994, when Pew Inquiry Middle began asking Americans a series of 10 "values questions" on subjects including the function of authorities, ecology protection and national security, the average gap betwixt Republicans and Democrats was 15 per centum points. By 2017, the first year of Trump'due south presidency, the average partisan gap on those aforementioned questions had more than doubled to 36 points, the upshot of a steady, decades-long increase in polarization.
On some issues, there were bigger changes in thinking amid Democrats than among Republicans during Trump'due south presidency. That was especially the case on topics such as race and gender, which gained new attention amid the Blackness Lives Matter and #MeToo movements. In a 2020 survey that followed months of racial justice protests in the U.Southward., for case, 70% of Democrats said information technology is "a lot more difficult" to be a Blackness person than to exist a White person in the U.S. today, up from 53% who said the same thing simply four years earlier. Republican attitudes on the aforementioned question changed picayune during that span, with but a small share like-minded with the Democratic view.
On other issues, attitudes changed more than amid Republicans than among Democrats. One notable example related to views of higher instruction: Between 2015 and 2017, the share of Republicans who said colleges and universities were having a negative effect on the fashion things were going in the U.S. rose from 37% to 58%, even equally around vii-in-x Democrats continued to say these institutions were having a positive effect.
Related: From #MAGA to #MeToo: A Expect at U.Due south. Public Opinion in 2017
A dearth of shared facts and information
Ane of the few things that Republicans and Democratscouldagree on during Trump'due south tenure is that they didn't share the same prepare of facts. In a 2019 survey, around iii-quarters of Americans (73%) said most Republican and Democratic voters disagreed not just over political plans and policies, only over "basic facts."
Much of the disconnect between the parties involved the news media, which Trump routinely disparaged as "simulated 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 distrust than trust in 2o of the 30 specific news outlets they were asked well-nigh, 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 study – Fox 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 changed media environments."
Some of the media organizations Trump criticized nigh 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 percentage 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 grade of 2018 and 2019, Republicans were far less likely than Democrats to say that journalists act in the all-time interests of the public, take loftier ethical standards, forbid political leaders from doing things they shouldn't and bargain adequately with all sides. Trump's staunchest GOP supporters often had the about negative views: Republicans who strongly approved of Trump, for example, were much more likely than those who only somewhat approved or disapproved of him to say journalists have very low ethical standards.
Apart from the growing partisan polarization over the news media, Trump'south time in office also saw the emergence of misinformation as a concerning new reality for many Americans.
One-half of U.S. adults said in 2019 that made-up news and information was a very big problem in the state, exceeding the shares who said the same matter almost racism, illegal immigration, terrorism and sexism. Effectually 2-thirds said made-up news and information had a large impact on public confidence in the government (68%), while half or more said information technology had a major effect on Americans' confidence in each other (54%) and political leaders' ability to get piece of work done (51%).
Misinformation played an important office in both the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 presidential ballot. Almost two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) said in April 2020 that they had seen at least some made-up news and information about the pandemic, with around half (49%) saying this kind of misinformation had caused a great deal of confusion over the bones facts of the outbreak. In a survey in mid-November 2020, six-in-ten adults said made-up news and information had played a major part in the just-concluded election.
Conspiracy theories were an especially salient grade of misinformation during Trump'south tenure, in many cases amplified by the president himself. For example, nigh one-half of Americans (47%) said in September 2020 that they had heard or read a lot or a little near the collection of conspiracy theories known as QAnon, up from 23% before in the year.4 Nigh of those enlightened of QAnon said Trump seemed to support the theory's promoters.
Trump often made disproven or questionable claims as president. News and fact-checking organizations documented thousands of his false statements over iv years, on subjects ranging from the coronavirus to the economy. Maybe none were more consequential than his repeated assertion of widespread fraud in the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Fifty-fifty after courts effectually the country had rejected the merits and all l states had certified their results, Trump connected to say he had won a "landslide" victory. The false claim gained widespread currency amidst his voters: In a Jan 2021 survey, three-quarters of Trump supporters incorrectly said he was definitely or probably the rightful winner of the election.
New concerns over American democracy
Throughout his tenure, Donald Trump questioned the legitimacy of democratic institutions, from the gratis press to the federal judiciary and the balloter process itself. In surveys conducted betwixt 2016 and 2019, more one-half of Americans said Trump had piffling or no respect for the nation'southward democratic institutions and traditions, though these views, too, dissever sharply along partisan lines.
The 2020 election brought concerns about democracy into much starker relief. Fifty-fifty earlier the election, Trump had cast doubt on the security of mail-in voting and refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the consequence 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 regime officials to retroactively tilt the outcome in his favor.
The weeks of legal and political challenges culminated on Jan. vi, 2021, when Trump addressed a crowd of supporters at a rally outside the White House and once more falsely claimed the election had been "stolen." With Congress meeting the same mean solar day to certify Biden's win, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in an attack that left v people dead and forced lawmakers to be evacuated until society could be restored and the certification could be completed. The Firm of Representatives impeached Trump a week later on a charge of inciting the violence, with 10 Republicans joining 222 Democrats in support of the decision.
Almost Americans placed at least some blame on Trump for the riot at the Capitol, including 52% who said he bore a lot of responsibility for information technology. Again, however, partisans' views differed widely: 81% of Democrats said Trump bore a lot of responsibleness, compared with but 18% of Republicans.
Even as he repeatedly cast doubt on the autonomous process, 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 81 one thousand thousand votes and Trump received more 74 1000000, the highest and 2nd-highest totals in U.S. history. Turnout in the 2018 midterm ballot, the first later on Trump took office, also set a modern-day tape.
Pew Research Center surveys catalogued the high stakes that voters perceived, especially in the run-up to the 2020 election. Just before the election, effectually nine-in-10 Trump and Biden supporters said there would be "lasting harm" to the nation if the other candidate won, and around 8-in-10 in each group said they disagreed with the other side non just on political priorities, but on "cadre American values and goals."
Earlier in the year, 83% of registered voters said it "really mattered" who won the election, the highest per centum for whatsoever 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 ballot that their selection was more than of a votefor the president than against Biden, while 63% of Biden supporters said their choice was more of a voteagainst Trump than for his opponent.
A reckoning over racial inequality
Racial tensions were a abiding undercurrent during Trump's presidency, oftentimes intensified by the public statements he fabricated in response to high-contour incidents.
The death of George Floyd, in particular, brought race to the surface in a way that few other contempo events have. The videotaped killing of the unarmed, 46-year-erstwhile Black human being past a White police officeholder in Minneapolis was among several law killings that sparked national and international protests in 2020 and led to an outpouring of public support for the Black Lives Matter motility, including from corporations, universities and other institutions. In a survey shortly afterwards Floyd's expiry in May, ii-thirds of U.South. adults – including majorities across all major racial and indigenous groups – voiced support for the motion, and utilize of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag surged to a record loftier on Twitter.
Attitudes began to change as the protests wore on and sometimes turned tearing, drawing sharp condemnation from Trump. By September, support for the Blackness Lives Matter motility had slipped to 55% – largely due to decreases among White adults – and many Americans questioned whether the nation's renewed focus on race would pb to changes to address racial inequality or ameliorate the lives of Black people.
Race-related tensions erupted into public view earlier in Trump's tenure, as well. In 2017, White nationalists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a Confederate statue amid a broader push to eliminate such memorials from public spaces across the state. The rally led to vehement clashes in the city's streets and the death of a 32-year-sometime woman when a White nationalist deliberately drove a machine into a crowd of people. Tensions also arose in the National Football League as some players protested racial injustices in the U.South. by kneeling during the national anthem. The brandish prompted a backlash among some who saw it as disrespectful to the American flag.
In all of these controversies and others, Trump weighed in from the White House, just typically not in a way that nearly Americans saw as helpful. In a summer 2020 survey, for instance, six-in-10 U.Southward. adults said Trump had delivered the wrong message in response to the protests over Floyd's killing. That included around four-in-10 adults (39%) who said Trump had delivered thecompletely wrong message.
More broadly, Americans viewed Trump'due south impact on race relations equally 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 but xv% who said he had fabricated progress toward improving relations. In the same survey, effectually two-thirds of adults (65%) said it had become more common for people in the U.S. to express racist or racially insensitive views since his ballot.
The public as well perceived Trump as likewise close with White nationalist groups. In 2019, a bulk of adults (56%) said he had done too trivial to distance himself from these groups, while 29% said he had washed about the right amount and seven% said he had done as well much. These opinions were near the aforementioned equally in December 2016, before he took function.
While Americans overall gave Trump much more than negative than positive marks for his handling of race relations, in that location were consistent divisions along racial, ethnic and partisan lines. Black, Hispanic and Asian adults were often more than critical of Trump'due south impact on race relations than White adults, every bit were Democrats when compared with Republicans. For example, while an overwhelming majority of Democrats (83%) said in 2019 that Trump had done also little to altitude himself from White nationalist groups, a majority of Republicans (56%) said he had washed nigh the right amount.
White Republicans, in particular, rejected the idea of widespread structural racism in the U.S. and saw also much emphasis on race. In September 2020, around eight-in-ten White Republicans (79%) said the bigger problem was people seeing racial discrimination where information technology doesn't exist, rather than people not seeing discrimination where information technology really does exist. The opinions of White Democrats on the same question were nearly the opposite.
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'due south public health and economic system.
More than 400,000 Americans died from COVID-19 between the beginning of the pandemic and when Trump left part, with fatality counts sometimes exceeding 4,000 people a twenty-four hours – a toll more severe than theoverall toll of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 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, as did dozens of White House 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 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 fifty-fifty higher amid Black (71%) and Hispanic (61%) adults.
At the same time, the pandemic had a disastrous effect on the economic system. Trump and Barack Obama together had presided over the longest economical expansion in American history, with the U.S. unemployment rate at a 50-yr low of three.5% as recently as February 2020. By April 2020, with businesses around the country closing their doors to forestall the spread of the virus, unemployment had soared to a postal service-World War Two high of 14.8%. Even subsequently considerable employment gains later in the year, Trump was the first modernistic president to exit the White House with fewer jobs in the U.Southward. than when he took office.
The economic consequences of the virus, like 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 task losses and pay cuts. The remarkable resiliency of U.S. stock markets was a rare vivid spot during the downturn, but one that had its own implications for economical inequality: Going into the outbreak, upper-income adults were far more than probable than lower-income adults to be invested in the market place.
The pandemic conspicuously underscored and exacerbated America's partisan divisions. Democrats were consistently much more than likely than Republicans to run into the virus every bit a major threat to public health, while Republicans were far more probable than Democrats to see it equally exaggerated and overblown. The two sides disagreed on public health strategies ranging from mask wearing to contact tracing.
The outbreak likewise had important consequences for America's epitome in the world. International views of the U.S. had already plummeted after Trump took office in 2017, but attitudes turned fifty-fifty more negative amid a widespread perception that the U.Due south. had mishandled the initial outbreak. The share of people with a favorable opinion of the U.S. fell in 2020 to record or near-record lows in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Uk and other countries. Across all 13 nations surveyed, a median of merely 15% of adults said the U.S. had done a expert task responding to COVID-nineteen, well below the median share who said the same matter about their own country, the World Wellness Organization, the European Union and People's republic of china.
At a much more personal level, many Americans expected the coronavirus outbreak to have a lasting bear on on them. In an Baronial 2020 survey, 51% of U.Southward. adults said they expected their lives to remain changed in major ways even after the pandemic is over.
Looking ahead
The aftershocks of Donald Trump'due south one-of-a-kind presidency volition take years to place into full historical context. It remains to be seen, for example, whether his disruptive make of politics will exist adopted by other candidates for function 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 bug will be reflected in government policy in the years to come.
Some of the most pressing questions, peculiarly in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol and Trump's subsequent bipartisan impeachment, concern the futurity of the Republican Political party. Some Republicans take moved away from Trump, but many others have continued to fight on his behalf, including by voting to turn down the balloter votes of two states won by Biden.
The GOP's management could depend to a considerable caste on what Trump does next. Around two-thirds of Americans (68%) said in January 2021 that they wouldnot similar to run across Trump go on to be a major political figure in the years to come, but Republicans were divided by ideology. More one-half of cocky-described moderate and liberal Republicans (56%) said they preferred for him to exit 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 equally he begins his tenure. Democrats have majorities – admitting extraordinarily narrow ones – in both legislative chambers of Congress. Other recent periods of single-party control in Washington accept resulted in the enactment of major legislation, such equally the $1.five trillion tax cut parcel that Trump signed in 2017 or the health 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 chore he has washed explaining his policies and plans for the futurity. Early surveys bear witness that he inspires wide conviction among people in three European countries that have long been important American allies: French republic, Frg and the U.k..
Still, the new administration faces obvious challenges on many fronts. The coronavirus pandemic will go along in the months ahead equally the vast majority of Americans remain unvaccinated. The economy is probable to struggle until the outbreak is under control. Polarization in the U.South. is not probable to change dramatically, nor is the partisan gulf in views of the news media or the spread of misinformation in the age of social media. The global challenges of climate modify and nuclear proliferation remain stark.
The nation's 46th president has vowed to unite the country as he moves frontwards with his policy agenda. Few would question the formidable nature of the job.
Title photo: President Donald Trump and offset lady Melania Trump board Air Force One for his final time as president on Jan. 20, 2021. (Pete Marovich–Pool/Getty Images)
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/2021/01/29/how-america-changed-during-donald-trumps-presidency/
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