Assessing the President's Impact on the Political System

Session Submission Type: Virtual Created Panel

Session Description

What are the various ways in which presidents exert their influence on the American political system? Crouch raises important questions about the Trump administration’s approach to clemency and pardon powers. Reviewing Trump’s clemency decisions from the latter part of his term, especially the controversial ones, Crouch puts those decisions into historical perspective and concludes with a discussion on proposals to reform the clemency power. Examining the Trump administration’s legacy from a different perspective, O’Brien argues that many of the Trump’s administration policies were rooted in late 19th century and early 20th century eugenical movement. O’Brien shows that the Trump administration was somewhat sophisticated in activating populations by exploiting old language and positions to resonate with certain segments of the population. Jacobson examines the lasting impact of Donald Trump on the Republican Party. Evaluating public opinion survey data taken before and after the election and during the first 9 months of the Biden administration, Jacobson shows how the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2020, and subsequent responses, affects public evaluations of the Republican Party’s popularity and reputation, as well as the durability of Trump’s claim that he won the 2020 presidential election. Klingler assesses how presidents exercise their influences in communications to core supporters and changes in presidential communication strategies over time. Applying unsupervised machine learning technique to emails from the Obama and the Trump administrations, Klingler shows the strategies each president uses to maintain the trust of their core supporters, yielding insights and relevance for how the Biden presidency may continue to use presidential emails as key communication tools for constituency outreach.

Sub Unit

• Division 23: Presidents and Executive Politics

Individual Presentations

• President Trump's Pardons: A New Low for Clemency - Jeffrey Crouch, American University

• Donald Trump and His Eugencial Legacy - Shannon Bow O' Brien, University of Texas, Austin

• The Effect of Donald Trump’s Effort to Subvert Democracy on the Republican Party - Gary C. Jacobson, University of California, San Diego

• Primary Constituency Focused Presidential Communication - Jonathan D. Klingler, University of Mississippi

Chair

• Terri Bimes University of California at Berkeley

Discussants

• Diane J. Heith St. John's University

• Terri Bimes University of California at Berkeley