CNN
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It’s now been 10 years since Donald Trump rode down that golden escalator and launched his 2016 presidential campaign. And plenty of people – raising my hand here – initially dismissed him as a passing novelty.
Little did we know at the time that this man would not only become president (twice), but would completely flip the political script in our country. Regardless of what happens from here, Trump has changed the course of our politics, in multiple ways.
So what are the biggest ones? Here are 10 that rise to the top.
1. The GOP’s abandonment of Reagan conservatism
The Republican Party bears little resemblance to the GOP of even a decade ago, when Trump first started running. The biggest policy shifts, to my mind:
It has gone from a more hawkish party to a more non-interventionist one – especially when it comes to combatting Russia in Ukraine. The percentage of Republicans who said it would be best if we “stay out of world affairs” rose from about 30% in 2015 to 53% in 2023, according to a Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll.
It has deemphasized high-minded ideals like democracy and morality, in favor of a more Machiavellian brand of politics. It has embraced the baseless challenging of election results. And it’s declined to hold moral failings against its candidates and top officials (like Trump) and human rights failings against foreign countries (like Russia and Saudi Arabia).
While it once defined itself as the party of free trade and “no new taxes,” it’s now pursuing a massive, protectionist trade war – one that involves, for all intents and purposes, large tax increases on goods decided upon by Trump alone.
It’s all decidedly un-Reagan.
At this point, Trump’s falsehoods often aren’t even treated as news. And that’s because, strictly speaking, they’re not new. He spouted more than 30,000 false and misleading claims in his first term, according to The Washington Post. That averages out to nearly one every hour for four years. And it hasn’t stopped.
Many people blanched when Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway referred to his team’s “alternative facts” three days after he first took office, but that has become a way of life for the president and his allies.
More significant than Trump’s willingness to spout false claims, though, is that much of the country has decided this is not a deal-breaker. Whether because they believe what Trump is saying or they have decided it’s not important (or that it’s even strategic), nearly half the country has decided it’s just not a big deal for the president to be grounded in the truth.
Trump effectively launched his national political ambitions with a conspiracy theory about how then-President Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States. And there’s been plenty more where that came from.
Back in 2019, I counted 23 conspiracy theories Trump had promoted. And that was long before his biggest one: the false stolen election claims that spurred the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
But more than Trump’s willingness to traffic in these things is his party’s willingness to believe them. It’s become a situation in which Trump claims something, and it often gradually becomes an article of faith for many in the GOP: the “stolen” 2020 election, the “great replacement theory,” various claims about the “deep state” targeting Trump, and last year the idea that Haitian migrants were eating pets in Ohio.
Conspiracy theories aren’t new to politics, and Republicans aren’t the only ones who believe in them; some of this is about the decline of traditional media and rise of social media, on which unverified claims flourish.
But Trump, more than anyone else, has effectively weaponized these theories to build his base.
Whether through happenstance, the Democrats’ own failings or Trump’s ability to block out the sun, the Trump era has left a remarkable vacuum in Democratic leadership.
The party in two successive presidential campaigns has nominated politicians who weren’t exactly towering figures. (Joe Biden won in 2020, but largely because of Trump’s own problems.) Its aged leadership in Congress has struggled to adjust to the new paradigm of the Trump era. Democrats have bled support among key demographics like Latinos and Black men (at least for now). And the party’s image numbers are as bad as they’ve been in decades, if not worse.
None of it means Democrats won’t rebound in 2026. Merely being the opposition party generally means you gain ground in midterm elections.
But rarely have we seen a party so devoid of a true identity and plan for the path forward. Trump has demonstrated a talent for confounding his opponents, and the Democratic Party as an institution has clearly been confounded.
5. The decline of legislating and consolidation of power
You’ve probably read a lot over the last 15 or so years about how Congress is stuck in a state of “gridlock.” The Trump era is not just about gridlock but the effective sidelining of Congress altogether.
Increasingly, Congress doesn’t even try – both because it doesn’t want to, and because Trump doesn’t want it to.
Earlier in the 21st century, this took the form of Congress effectively handing the president war powers the Constitution gave it, because members didn’t want to take hard votes on using force.
Today, the Republican-controlled Congress has stood by as Trump has taken over its tariff powers and its power of the purse. The administration has pushed to cancel congressionally appropriated spending, and Congress is doing almost nothing to reclaim these powers.
The attitude increasingly seems to be: It’s just easier to let the president do it, if possible. Republican lawmakers might disagree with Trump on issues like tariffs or the war in Ukraine, but they often decline to assert power even where it’s prescribed to them in the Constitution, because they fear his attacks or the prospect of a primary challenge.
The result: Trump signed a historically low five bills in his first 100 days. Meanwhile, he set a record for executive actions – exceeding even the first 100-day clip of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was combatting the Great Depression.
One of the biggest questions right now is how much more authoritarian the American government might become under Trump. He’s flirted with this for years, and whether you think the a-word is appropriate, many of his early moves are geared toward consolidating power.
And as all of that’s happened, Trump’s base has warmed to the idea and created a more ripe environment.
Polls for years have shown Republicans souring on checks and balances and moving in favor of a version of governmental power that’s centralized in the presidency – or more aptly, Trump.
A survey earlier this year showed 76% of Republicans said Trump should keep deporting people even if the courts tell him to stop. Another last year showed just 26% of Republicans said it would be good for a president to rule “without having to worry about Congress or the courts,” but that number rose to 57% when the president in question was Trump.
Congressional Republicans, too, have greased the skids. Many of them have basically said whatever Trump wants is what they should do, and they’ve roundly criticized the judiciary when it stands in his way – even as Trump’s moves transparently test the bounds of the law.
Trump has turned his party into one that’s defined by loyalty to him, in large part by turning it against other major institutions. He’s basically made himself into the one true answer, because, in his telling, nobody else can be trusted.
Republicans were always suspicious of big government and especially the media, but that’s been put on steroids.
Gallup polling in recent years has shown fewer than 1 in 5 Republicans express confidence in Congress, the media, public schools, the criminal justice system and big business. And their level of trust in most institutions is significantly lower than Democrats’.
Trump – the first convicted felon ever to become president – has also significantly devalued and politicized the justice system. He’s done so by regularly attacking the courts, but also by rewarding allies (see: the January 6 pardons and his many pardons of allies) and wielding investigative powers to target his opponents.
And of late, Trump has turned his focus to wielding the powers of government against major institutions he dislikes, like law firms, universities and the media – in ways that are often transparently political.
There have been myriad examples of political violence in recent years – most notably an assassination attempt a year ago that nearly killed Trump and the shootings of two Minnesota state lawmakers over the weekend.
And repeatedly in recent years, Trump himself has toyed with the prospect of political violence.
Regardless of how much Trump is at fault for anything, it’s clear his rise has created a tinderbox in our politics.
A number of Republicans who have run afoul of Trump have said part of the reason their colleagues have stayed in line was because of not just the fear of political blowback, but fear for their own safety. I ran through several examples here after January 6. And there have been more since.
And then there is the increasing tolerance for it. Polling after January 6, but before the Trump assassination attempts, suggested that Americans were increasingly likely to say political violence can sometimes be justified. Republicans were more likely to say this.
While the shift of Latinos and Black men toward Trump was the big demographic story of the 2024 election, perhaps the most significant and durable demographic shift of the Trump era is education.
Put plainly: Democrats have become the party of the educated, while Republicans have become the party of the working class.
When Trump launched his 2016 campaign, Gallup polling showed every education level except those with postgraduate degrees were pretty evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Those without college degrees now lean clearly Republican, while those with college degrees lean Democrats.
The gap between non-college and college-educated voters has gone from virtually nil to around 20 points. It’s even bigger when you look at postgrads.
When Trump came on to the scene in 2015, the Republican Party was in an unusual spot. While it had for years decried illegal immigration, it had decided after a disappointing 2012 election – particularly with Latino voters – that a change in tone was necessary. You might remember the “autopsy.”
Trump almost immediately lit that portion of the autopsy on fire, making a series of broad and hyperbolic claims about how migrants were “rapists” and criminals. And more than any issue, harsh immigration enforcement is now front and center to our politics.
Of late, this has meant some of the lowest border-crossing numbers of the 21st century – a major political win for Trump and a development that has lent credence to Trump’s argument that all we really needed was a president with willpower.
But the immigration debate is also bigger than that right now. It forms the basis of the power struggles in Washington, with Trump using what he thinks is Americans’ thirst for deportations to test the limits of his power, both with the courts and the American public.
Thus far, the courts have repeatedly blocked him, and Americans don’t seem to like all of what he’s doing. Whether he is allowed to push forward will go a long way toward determining how powerful he ultimately becomes.
