The Social Media Presidency: Donald Trump, Twitter, and Party Discipline

• In Event: Questions of Executive Power: Foundations, Assumptions, and Rhetoric

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of social media on the public leadership strategies of U.S. presidents. We develop a theory of opportunistic presidential leadership that details the incentives presidents have to incorporate new technological developments into their political strategies. This paper examines one such strategic opportunity – whether presidents use Twitter to effectively discipline co-partisan elites. We rely on a mixed-method research design using quantitative text analysis and case studies of major political and policy conflicts in which President Trump faced the threat of defection from members of the Republican Party. This approach allows us to systematically evaluate the content of President Trump’s messages to co-partisans, while also providing a test of our theory.

Authors

• Samuel Fontaine

• Daniel M Gomez, University of California Santa Barbara