Donald Trump Research Articles

The Impact of Realism on U.S. Foreign Policy during the Trump Presidency

Purpose: This article explored the impact of realism on American foreign policy during the Trump administration, striving to answer whether Trump adopted a realist stance or employed a unique blend of realism to enhance American interests on the global stage. Methodology: Centering on theoretical analysis and historical context, this study investigated the alignment of Trump's controversial personality and his "America First" slogan with the quest for national interests and power dynamics. This paper spotlighted Trump's unorthodox implementation of realism by exploring specific global issues, such as security strategies, trade policies, and diplomatic methods. Findings: This paper underscored Trump's deviation from traditional realism and adopting an unconventional realist approach. Particular emphasis was placed on this approach's implications for global power dynamics and the ethical dimensions of U.S. foreign policy. This study pinpointed noteworthy results from Trump's unique fusion of realism, providing insights into its effects on international relations. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: This research contributed to theoretical comprehension and practical implications for future American foreign policy. It illuminated the Trump administration's unorthodox implementation of realism and its ramifications for international cooperation. Moreover, this paper advocated for a balanced approach incorporating strategic pragmatism with ethical leadership to efficiently tackle intricate global challenges and uphold the United States' role in the international arena.

Extended commentary—U.S.‐Asian policy in the throes of McCarthyism, old and new

AbstractThe subtext of this extended commentary for the 2024 Policy Studies Yearbook in Politics & Policy is the crucial role that liberalism and civil rights must play in U.S. foreign policy if America is to be on the right side of history. Our explicit subject is the conflux of elite and populist forces that constantly work against such liberal‐democratic engagement. It is no secret that today's MAGAism (“Make America Great Again”) wears many of the same antiliberal stripes as did postwar McCarthyism, which was its direct progenitor. Thanks largely to the center‐right resistance of President Eisenhower, McCarthyism was ultimately held in check domestically. Unfortunately, that was not the case on the side of U.S. foreign policy, where tenacious strains of antiliberalism had a very long shelf life. Thus, McCarthyism ended up having its most durable impact in the developing world, where cozy relations with highly reactionary regimes were considered necessary in the face of communist inroads. At a time when liberalism was hitting its full stride on American soil, U.S. foreign policy was exporting a very different America abroad, and especially in Asia. Even domestically, the waspish virulence of McCarthyism was never eradicated. It simply hibernated, and in 2016, it came back with a vengeance in the even more truculent form of Trumpism. Once again, xenophobic populism is laying claim to U.S. foreign policy and savaging liberal internationalism. The entrenched progressivism that stood its ground against McCarthyism has long since eroded. MAGAism faces no obstacle comparable to the dynamic liberalism of the 1950s or the counterculture of the 1960s. Seen from the perspective of January 6, 2021, the old McCarthyism looks tame by comparison.Related ArticlesCraig, Stephen C., and Jason Gainous. 2024. “To Vote or Not to Vote? Fake News, Voter Fraud, and Support for Postponing the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election.” Politics & Policy 52(1): 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12577.Haar, Roberta N., and Lutz F. Krebs. 2021. “The Failure of Foreign Policy Entrepreneurs in the Trump Administration.” Politics & Policy 49(2): 446–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12399.Skidmore, Max J. 2023. “Abortion—Reactionary Theocracy Rises in America, While Declining Elsewhere.” Politics & Policy 51(3): 437–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12534.

The Private Litigation Impact of New York’s Green Amendment

The increasing urgency of climate change, combined with federal environmental inaction under the Trump Administration, inspired a wave of environmental action at the state and local level. Building on the environmental movement of the 1970s, activists have pushed to amend more than a dozen state constitutions to include “green amendments”—self-executing individual rights to a clean environ-ment. In 2022, New York activists succeeded, and New York’s Green Amendment (the NYGA) now provides that “Each person shall have a right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” However, the power of the NYGA and similar green amendments turns on judicial interpretations of their scope. In the first decision to reach the issue, a New York trial court held, with little analysis, that the NYGA provides no private rights against private polluters. This conclusion could severely limit the reach and significance of state envi-ronmental rights. This article examines a single question: Does the NYGA grant private rights that are enforceable against private parties? In answering this question, we examine the 50-year history of private litigation under green amendments, the substance and historical context of the NYGA, and the broader structure of New York’s constitution and environmental law. We conclude that the New York trial court got it wrong, and that the NYGA does provide a private cause of action against private parties. We further assess the indirect impact of constitutional envi-ronmental rights on private litigation, and conclude that the NYGA will have an enormous impact on private litigation generally, irrespective of whether New York’s courts reject private litigation under the NYGA. This discussion provides a novel evaluation of the shadow that consti-tutional changes cast on non-constitutional law.

Pandemic Persona and Digital Culture: The Role of Celebrity Politicians on Social Networks

The paper discusses a specific intersection of the politics, celebrity, and digital culture. In the last few decades, more and more people from the entertainment realm entered the world of institutional politics trying to leverage their popularity. Thanks to the media, they manage to transfer their celebrity capital, namely accumulated media visibility and recognisability (Driesens 2013) into the political sphere. In the beginning, they improve their visibility with the help of mass media that place their personas and private lives in the focus of public attention. However, with the digitalization of the media, the popular-political landscape has changed (Marshall 2020), so today they have dispositional new bases for practising personalized politics, i.e. imposing their personality instead of political party programmes. In this paper, attention is directed to former American president Donald Trump, president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Miroslav Škoro, who was a candidate in the presidential, parliamentary, and local elections in Croatia. Although there were obvious differences between these three celebrities mentioned before entering the political arena, their later use of social networks vividly shows how they built their political/pandemic persona in the evolving mediatization of politics.

The impact of terminating cost-sharing reductions payments on health insurance plan choices

The Trump administration terminated cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) payments to health insurers in 2017, while still required insurers to provide CSRs to eligible enrollees in the Marketplace. Marketplace administration data reveals that, in response to this termination, insurers raised premiums to compensate for their loss. Consequently, premium increases led to more advanced premium tax credits for enrollees in the Marketplace. To investigate the impact of CSRs payment termination on low-income consumer insurance plan choices, I leverage variations in state price regulations and employed a difference-in-differences design. In a robustness analysis, I utilized differences in county income distributions to examine the effects of the termination on insurance choices. The results indicate that after the termination, more low-income enrollees opted for cheaper bronze plans, and fewer chose silver plans. These results suggest that alterations in subsidy channels may inadvertently encourage low-income individuals to purchase less expensive health insurance plans, highlighting an unintended consequence of the termination of cost-sharing subsidies.

The determinants of trump’s defeat: what if the COVID-19 pandemic did not matter?

ABSTRACT While the COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the lives of many people worldwide, it is debated whether it led to the defeat of incumbent Donald Trump in the 2020 American presidential election. We argue that the COVID-19 pandemic had a significantly negative impact on Trump’s support due to his conflicting and populist rhetoric, which culminated in contradictory behavior at a time when Americans sought a consistent leader to “rally round the flag.” We use both waves of the ANES 2020 Survey to determine what support for Trump would have looked like if the COVID-19 pandemic had lower influence in citizens’ electoral decision-making compared to real world conditions using regressions and a counterfactual strategy. Our findings suggest that Trump’s electoral defeat depended on multiple factors, with aggregate-level analyzes suggesting that Trump would have received more support had the management of the health crisis mattered less in voting decisions.

Border-making as illiberal politics

Abstract Radical Right-wing populism frequently involves ‘divide and rule’ strategies as a means to attain and consolidate political power. In the cases of Viktor Orban’s political regime in Hungary and Donald Trump’s four-year presidency (and its aftermath), we find a pronounced attempt to create narrative hegemony of a sense of nation built upon Christian civilization and foundationalist understandings of national identity. Moreover, both cases reveal processes of social border-making that are reflected in norming and the creation of distinctions based on degrees of national authenticity. Applying an ontological security and critical borders studies approach, this paper will specifically focus on the different ways in which border-making processes, or bordering, are implicated in the exercise of illiberal political power in the Hungarian and US cases. Despite many similarities, the actual mobilization of popular support reflects local conditions and has resulted in rather different political outcomes.

A Bayesian latent variable model for the optimal identification of disease incidence rates given information constraints

Abstract We present an original approach for measuring infections as a latent variable and making use of serological and expert surveys to provide ground truth identification during the early pandemic period. Compared to existing approaches, our model relies more on empirical information than strong structural forms, permitting inference with relatively few assumptions of cumulative infections. We also incorporate a range of political, economic, and social covariates to richly parameterize the relationship between epidemic spread and human behaviour. To show the utility of the model, we provide robust estimates of total infections that account for biases in COVID-19 cases and tests counts in the U.S. from March to July of 2020, a period of time when accurate data about the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus was of limited availability. In addition, we can show how sociopolitical factors like the Black Lives Matter protests and support for President Donald Trump are associated with the spread of the virus via changes in fear of the virus and cell phone mobility. A reproducible version of this article is available as an Rmarkdown file at https://github.com/CoronaNetDataScience/covid_model.

SAMHSA reinstates CSAP Prevention Fellowship program

One of the substance use disorder (SUD) workforce tools to die during the Trump administration was the CSAP (Center for Substance Abuse Prevention) Prevention Fellowship Program, run by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Change in Administration, Change in Deportation Worry? Analyzing the Reduction of U.S. Latinos’ Worries About Deportation from 2019 to 2021

Extensive scholarship traces the development and impacts of the U.S. immigration and deportation system on Latino immigrants and U.S. born Latinos, alike. However, relatively little quantitative research has investigated the worries that Latinos express about deportation, explored the temporal dynamics in such concerns, or identified which factors predict shifts in deportation-related concerns over time. Using two waves of data for a national sample of U.S. Latino adults, the analyses explored changes in their deportation worry between 2019 and 2021, marking the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration. Descriptive results indicate that more than a third of Latinos reported reductions in deportation worry over the two year period, with even larger proportions of Latino immigrants, including naturalized citizens, legal permanent residents and undocumented immigrants, reporting declines in worry. Regression results reveal that, aside from indicators of legal vulnerability, other aspects of the current sociopolitical and racialized context meaningfully shape declines in deportation worries. Specifically, darker-skinned Latinos, and those experiencing more anti-Hispanic discrimination, expressing some co-ethnic linked fate, and who viewed the Trump administration as harmful to Latinos reported significant reductions in worry from 2019 to 2021, ceteris paribus. These results suggest a “calming effect” of some Latinos’ deportation worries as the Trump administration ended and the Biden administration began. Nevertheless, the study demonstrates how the racialized immigration and deportation system shapes deportation-related worries among a wide swath of Latinos, the consequences of which racialize them and spill over into their everyday lives.

Measuring firm exposure to government agencies

We use textual analysis of mandatory accounting filings to develop firm-level, time-varying measures of exposure to individual government agencies including the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The measures vary predictably across industries and with agency-specific events such as the Sarbanes Oxley Act at the SEC and budget cuts at the IRS. The measures positively relate to undisclosed agency investigations and financial statement downloads. Firms' total exposure across government agencies negatively relates to their profitability, consistent with exposure to government agencies imposing net costs. Consistent with a causal interpretation of these results, the positive stock market reaction to the surprise election of Donald Trump, who promised to reduce the power of government agencies, positively varies with firms' exposure to government agencies. As initial applications of our measures, we demonstrate that expanded SEC oversight increases firms' stock liquidity and reduced IRS oversight decreases firms’ effective tax rates.

Settle for Biden: The scalar production of a normative presidential candidate on Instagram

Abstract This article performs a multimodal digital discourse analysis to examine how the 2020 social media political campaign called ‘Settle for Biden’ successfully encouraged young Progressives to vote for Joe Biden. In contrast to previous US presidential campaigns that highlight the extraordinary capabilities of their candidates, this campaign utilized the scalar and chronotopic production of normativity to highlight Biden's ‘mediocre’ capabilities. The campaign's focus on ‘settling’ for a mediocre candidate was feasible only in the sociopolitical context of 2020, at a time when Donald Trump's leadership had come to be perceived as chaotic and dangerous. While using humor to make salient the normal nature of Biden, the campaign used semiotic strategies appealing to interconnected unmarked normativities associated with class, age, race, and gender. To draw on Hall (2021), the campaign produces ‘language in the middle’, constructing Biden as neither extraordinary nor reprehensible yet preferable to the abnormality of his competitor. (Normativity, scales, chronotopes, multimodality, intertextuality, politics, social media)*

LEXICAL COHESION ANALYSIS OF DONALD TRUMP’S SCRIPT SPEECH

Abstract This study has target to find lexical cohesion in the text of a speech delivered by a controversial president, Donald Trump. The researcher also reveals several reasons why the writing problem is on lexical cohesion where cohesive devices play an important role in shaping a speech and the use of language that is organized and easily understood by others in delivering a speech will have an impact on communication that goes well, so as to avoid misunderstandings between speakers and listeners. Therefore, the method used in this research is qualitative and this descriptive qualitative research also used observational method and note taking technique. In supporting data collection techniques, researchers use the theory of Creswell (2018) and also support by Merriam &Tisdell (2016) .The next by Litosseliti (2010). The lexical cohesion proposed by Matthienssen & Halliday, (2014) has several types of lexical cohesion consist of repetition, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, and meronymy. For the results of data analysis, there are 50 repetitions then 1 hyponymy then 1 meronym, 2 synonyms, and finally 1 antonym. Keywords: Speech Script, Cohesion, Lexical cohesion, Qualitative

Expertise, moral subversion, and climate deregulation

The weaponizing of scientific expertise to oppose regulation has been extensively studied. However, the relevant studies, belonging to the emerging discipline of agnotology, remain focused on the analysis of empirical corruption: of misinformation, doubt mongering, and other practices that cynically deploy expertise to render audiences ignorant of empirical facts. This paper explores the wrongful deployment of expertise beyond empirical corruption. To do so, I develop a broader framework of morally subversive expertise, building on recent work in political philosophy (Howard, 2016). Expertise is subversive if it sets up its audience to fail morally, either intentionally or negligently. I distinguish three modes of subversive expertise: empirical subversion (the focus of agnotology), normative subversion and motivational subversion. Drawing on these distinctions, I offer a revisionary account of the Trump Administration’s regulatory science as a case study. I show that the Trump Administration’s use of expertise to dismantle climate regulation, contra the standard charge, cannot be explained using the resources of agnotology alone: the Administration produced highly reliable climate assessments, detailing the risks of climate change, candidly admitting the harms of its proposed policies, and still successfully deployed these findings to justify massive climate deregulation. The lesson of the analysis is that dismissing the expertise that underpins climate deregulation as empirically corrupt ‘anti-science’ both obscures its actual role in the politics of climate change and understates its wrongfulness: it misses the breadth of the assault on moral agency that sustains climate injustice.

Digital Trans-Pacific Silk Road and Phases of China-Latin American Connectivity: From Silver to AI

In this paper, we aim to document and analyze the long arc of connectivity between China and Latin America. First, using analytical international trade and economic tools, we provide a new economic perspective of the First Globalization–-the Ming and early Qing China’s economic and business links with Latin America and Europe. Second, due to U.S. government trade policies toward China in the 1990s, the Second China’s Globalization was ushered in with its entry to the World Trade Organization (WTO). During this second phase, China exchanged manufactured goods with minerals and resources from Latin America. Finally, the tough technology and trade stance by the Trump and Biden Administrations prompted China to intensify the third phase of China interaction with Latin America. For the 2020s and beyond, one important pillar of the Third China-Latin America-Europe Globalization is heightened efforts for China to increase its digital-AI, telecommunication and platform business presence and access into the Latin American markets. To enrich our analysis, we will provide Chinese-style digital-AI business and economic models to help illustrate our discussions. Throughout our paper, we want to point out that government policies were instrumental in bringing forth these Three Globalizations that involve China-Latin America-Europe.

Policy Solutions: Policy, not politics

The 2024 presidential election features a rematch from four years ago: President Biden and former President Trump. While all presidential elections matter, columnist Jonathan E. Collins argues that this election is especially pivotal to K-12 education policy. Collins poses major education policy questions that we should be asking heading into the upcoming election.

Talking back to the wall: Problematizing trans/national media and counter-publics in border politics

This study presents a textual analysis of the discourses that emerged in Mexican national newspapers and on Twitter about Donald Trump’s calls for a border wall in 2017. As the case of Israel’s border wall became entangled in this discussion, discourse in print and social media engaged in a re-evaluation of alliances and solidarities between Mexico, the Jewish-Mexican community and Israel. The findings show print and online media discourse to be remarkably consistent in terms of the voices that were elevated, the targets of criticism, and the enabling of vilifying narratives about the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

Mobilizing middlemen: the Conservative Political Action Conference and the creation of party activists

ABSTRACT How are activists molded into middlemen in a polarized two-party system? Using the case of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), this paper examines the process of activist mobilization that occurs at political gatherings. Using two rounds of interviews and participant observation from CPAC in 2019 and 2020, I argue that contrary to popular media portrayals of CPAC as political theater now rooted in the spectacle of President Trump, the conference is an important site of mobilizing activists into party middlemen. This happens through three processes: first conference attendees are taught conservative policy stances and presented with a bundle of issue positions; second, they are provided with the tools for effective activism formally through provided training and informally through socialization; and finally, their conservative identity is continually defined and reinforced with cultural meaning-making practices throughout the conference.

The Electoral College’s Impact on Presidential Mandates and Agendas

The Electoral College is the method used in every four years to elect the President of the United States. Given that the Electoral College gives the power to elect the president to state-casted votes, the system has in recent years become a source of growing controversy given how two presidents, George Bush in 2000 and Donald Trump in 2016, without winning the national popular vote. These elections and the public discourse around them have brought new life to the purpose and impacts of the Electoral College.  This paper uses key presidential elections, including those of John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Harrison, Woodrow Wilson, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, give insight on how the Electoral College should now be understood. In particular, this paper examines the implications of the Electoral College on one fundamental question: Does election to the presidency via the Electoral College route fundamentally affect the ability of a president to govern effectively?  Examining these elections, the context around and impact after these elections, and modern United States political history shows that when the Electoral College is not an extraordinary or exceptionally notable part of an election cycle, the Electoral College does not fundamentally affect the president’s ability to command public and political support required to effectively govern. However, when the Electoral College does become a point of focus during a presidential election and in the beginning of a president’s term, it has wide-ranging impacts. In particular, the College can shape the political and public mandate the president has to lead, shaping their overall agenda for their time in office; cause biases to arise towards certain states and conservative politics; and undermine their ability to serve as a unifying figure. With each modern election having an increased focus on the Electoral College, the system is likely to cause increased polarization and tension with each passing election if serious reforms are not undertaken.

An Analysis and Comparison of the Differences in the Realization of Interpersonal Functions in Different Political Keynote Speeches

This research employs Halliday's theory of the interpersonal function to scrutinize and contrast language patterns and techniques in keynote speeches delivered by notable political figures, specifically former US President Donald Trump, ex-UK Prime Minister Theresa May, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In the era of globalization, where increased interconnectedness emphasizes the importance of political speeches, shaping nations and reflecting the interests and identities of stakeholders, it is crucial to examine these speeches. The analysis identifies shared traits, including skillful use of first-person language to establish authority and self-expression, in addition to the use of medium-valued modal verbs and declarative mood for interpersonal connection and viewpoint assertion. The study explores variations in Trump's "America First" inaugural address and disparities in speeches by Trump and May that are related to high-valued modal and second-person verbs, highlighting their different political backgrounds. Furthermore, it evaluates the interpersonal function in Hillary Clinton's speeches, examining language's effectiveness in engaging audiences and accomplishing different speech objectives. By examining these patterns, this research supports a better understanding of cultural differences between the United States and Britain, revealing linguistic tools that help political figures connect with audiences and accomplish specific speech goals. This cross-cultural study provides detailed insights into language's role in political communication, deepening our understanding of leaders' strategies for effective agenda communication and resonance with constituents.