Trump and Congress

Abstract

In examining Donald Trump's presidential leadership, this article focuses on determining his efficacy as a political leader evident through three critical turning points in his presidency. His presidency began with a key legislative defeat, followed by a rare policy victory and in 2019, he controversially shutdown the government in a failed attempt to gain congressional funding for the US-Mexico border wall. By comparing the GOP attempt to reform healthcare with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, this article demonstrates how Republican legislative success relied upon a unified approach between Congress and the White House, with clear, long-established policy goals. Analysis of the longest government shutdown in US history provides insight into Trump's leadership style, presidential power and relationship with Congress. In all three cases, Trump's rhetoric failed to effectively support Republican policy efforts or convince Americans that their course of action was best. Indeed, Trump's rhetoric and actions often proved more contradictory and damaging to Republican efforts and to the overall future of the party. This article concludes that Trump inexperience and character was illequipped to be an effective political leader, evident in his few legislative achievements and the toxic environment of hyperpartisanship he left behind.

Searching for green elephants and other mythical creatures during the Trump years: Partisanship and congressional voting on environmental legislation

“…This becomes increasingly interesting when one considers the politics of the Trump era (Barber & Pope, 2019b; Guild & Reiger, 2021; Seib, 2020) and the moves by his administration to undermine environmental regulations through the administrative presidency (Thompson et al, 2020). Notably, the few legislative successes under Trump relied heavily on alignment between the White House and Congressional Republicans (Amira et al, 2019; Smith, 2021). Thus, one must wonder if the party's stance on the environment was aligned with Trump's own policy preferences, then why are there so many voting anomalies by Republicans, in both the House and Senate, in which they sided with the Democratic majority to shoot down Republican‐sponsored legislation that advanced the president's environmental agenda?…”