The Trump Presidency and the Structure of Modern American Politics
by Byron E. Shafer, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Regina L. Wagner, University of Wisconsin-Madison
One thing that political scientists reliably do is tease out the underlying structure of a nation’s politics and use it to interpret political events as they unfold. One thing that Donald Trump reliably does is flummox political scientists with words and actions that they do not recognize as conventional behavior. But should the Trump Presidency not be seen simply as one among several logical results of a political structure recognized consensually by a great many analysts, even as they ignore the inescapable link between structure and outcome?
Perspectives on Politics, Volume 17, Issue 2, September 2018