Trump’s presidency came to highlight the hyperpartisanship of the era. Despite historically low national approval polls that ranged from the low 30s to low 40s across his first year and a half in office, his support among Republicans remained strong in the 80s. Even more so than Richard Nixon in 1974, Trump could count on continued Republican support—as well as conservative media—to insulate him from the outrage that helped bring his predecessor down after scandals such as the Saturday Night Massacre. The polarization of the past four decades had divided the country but, in an odd paradox, that polarization provided for a stable floor even with the most unconventional, unorthodox, and divisive president the nation had ever seen. For many Republicans, the simple fact that Trump enraged Democrats proved to be enough reason to rally around him. This partisanship, of course, was intensified by a conservative media establishment that increasingly went beyond echoing the Republican Party line to actively shaping it. Reporters soon realized that Trump’s morning flurry of statements on Twitter tracked closely with the commentary of the Fox & Friends morning show, and likewise, the “Trump TV Presidency” seemed to take cues from Fox News’s evening hosts. The president dined often with Sean Hannity, and had Lou Dobbs participate in Oval Office meetings over a speakerphone. Others from conservative cable news programs were formally made part of the administration, with CNBC host Larry Kudlow made head of the National Economic Council and Heather Nauert, a former Fox & Friends host, appointed as an undersecretary of state. The Sinclair Broadcast Group—a conservative network of local channels whose already broad reach expanded considerably with favorable decisions by the Trump administration’s FCC—then amplified the arguments coming out of the administration and its allies in cable news. Sinclair-owned stations, which soon reached nearly three-fourths of all American households, broadcast politically charged editorials by former Trump aide Boris Epshteyn and required local anchors to read Sinclair-prepared scripts that echoed Trump’s complaints that the news media often spread “fake stories.” Meanwhile, Trump’s allies on the internet and social media were willing to go even further, peddling arguments that veered beyond conservative activism into the realm of conspiracy theories. In short order, the line between fact and fiction became so thin that it was hard to see the difference.11
The first year of the Trump presidency revealed the enormous wear and tear that forty years of bitter division has inflicted on the republic. Yet a divided nation did not mean a broken nation. As the leadership in Washington became ever more gridlocked, ordinary citizens—from all sides—took to the streets to take a stand for their rights and to remind the nation of its responsibilities. The Trump and Sanders campaigns had brought large numbers of previously apathetic Americans into the political process for the first time in decades, and the Trump administration inspired new waves of engagement from a variety of other marginalized groups. This was, as the students from Parkland repeatedly insisted, what democracy looked like. At the moment of this writing, the end result of the new wave of political mobilization is still unseen. Perhaps these processes, now largely a mechanism of protest, will turn into avenues toward democratic compromise and the resolution of the many questions that have pushed Americans apart since the time that Richard Nixon stepped down from office. The tumult over Watergate and Vietnam destroyed many institutions and policies that helped bring us closer together in the post–World War II era, but as this book has shown, new structures and systems took their place. The same process, of course, can happen again.
The question that the United States of America now faces as a divided country is whether we can harness the intense energy that now drives us apart and channel it once again toward creating new and stronger bridges that can bring us closer together. Whether the fault lines of the past four decades will continue to fracture, or whether these rifts will finally start to heal, is a chapter yet to come.
On September 8, 1974, in a televised address, President Gerald Ford, seeking to heal the nation from Watergate, pardoned Richard Nixon, former president, for whatever crimes he might have committed. (Photo: Gerald Ford Presidential Library)
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After the Nixon pardon, the nation erupted in outrage. Sign-carrying protesters gathered outside the White House, as distrust in government worsened across the country. (Photo: Bill Pierce/LIFE Magazine/Getty Images)
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Tensions over race relations intensified in the early 1970s. Here, a white woman from North Boston angrily gestures to black students being bused to a white school as part of the new court-ordered busing system to desegregate the public schools, to “go home and stay home” in September 1974. (Photo: Charles Dixon/The Boston Globe/Getty Images)
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The fall of South Vietnam constituted a devastating defeat for US Cold War policy. Crowds of Vietnamese and Western evacuees wait around the swimming pool inside the American Embassy compound in Saigon, hoping to escape Vietnam via helicopter before the arrival of North Vietnamese troops. Nearly all were left behind as the evacuation stopped at nightfall, and the following day, April 30, 1975, NVA tanks rolled into Saigon and the Vietnam War officially ended. (Photo: Nik Wheeler/Getty Images)
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New York subway cars, covered in graffiti, served as a visible reminder of the urban crisis, which symbolized the broken state of the national economy in the 1970s. New York City was widely perceived to be in a state of decay, losing nearly 800,000 residents between 1970 and 1980. (Photo: Erik Calonius/Library of Congress)
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President Ford stumbled in his debates against Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, including when he seemed to say to a stunned national audience that there was no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. (Photo: Gerald Ford Presidential Library)
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The only slight sign of economic hope came from California, where numerous entrepreneurs were developing a personal computer. American businessmen and engineers Steve Jobs (left) and Steve Wozniak, cofounders of Apple Computer Inc., at the first West Coast Computer Faire. The Apple II computer debuted there, in Brooks Hall, San Francisco, California, April 1977. (Photo: Tom Munnecke/Getty Images)
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The conservative movement offered a compelling response to Americans who were losing faith in national institutions. Phyllis Schlafly (center), demonstrating in front of the White House against the Equal Rights Amendment in 1977. (Photo: Getty Images)
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Liberal Democrats such as Senator Ted Kennedy (left), meeting with the president in the Oval Office, continually urged Carter to defend the traditions of the Democratic Party. Frustrated that the president moved too far to the center, Kennedy would unsuccessfully challenge Carter for the 1980 Democratic nomination. (Photo: White House/National Archives)
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An anti-Iranian protest in Washington, DC. The hostage crisis in Iran that started in November 1979 crippled President Carter’s administration and added to the frustration, which grew out of Vietnam, about American power overseas. (Photo: Marion S. Tikosko/U.S. News & World Report/Library of Congress)
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The energy crisis caused turmoil throughout the country and dampened confidence that policy makers would be able to do anything about the economic malaise. Cars lining up for fuel at a gas station in Maryland in June 1979. (Photo: Warren K. Leffler/National Archives)
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An unemployed man looking for work in Denver, Colorado, in June 1980. (Photo: Ernie Leyba/The Denver Post/Getty Images)
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The rapid expansion of cable television transformed the media landscape, including the news cycle. Anchorwoman Mary Alice Williams broadcasts from new cable TV news network CNN’s studio during its first weeks, when the station went on the air in the summer of 1980. (Photo: Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images)
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Ronald Reagan’s victory in the 1980 presidential election was a triumph for conservatism. Reagan (right), here voting with his wife, Nancy, in the historic election,
promised to bring the ideas of conservatism to the halls of power in Washington. (Photo: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library)
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Supreme Court justice nominee Sandra Day O’Connor, with President Ronald Reagan at the White House, July 1981. Many of the president’s fellow conservatives, who considered O’Connor to be far too liberal on social issues, grew angry with Reagan when he took steps that did not fit with his campaign promises to the Right. (Photo: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library/National Archives)
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Another technological breakthrough came with the introduction of the videocassette recorder, which was mass-marketed in the early 1980s. The Video Home System (VHS), produced by JVC and Panasonic, allowed viewers to watch movies on their television sets and eventually to record shows. (Smithsonian)
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The AIDS crisis devastated gay communities and stimulated a mobilization of Americans who demanded that the government do more to fund research into this disease. Members of the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee (CSLDC) carry a banner in New York City, June 1983. (Photo: Barbara Alper/Getty Images)
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Personal computers revolutionized the way in which Americans conducted business and communicated with each other. Apple introduced the Macintosh in 1984. (Photo: Apic/Getty Images)
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As the culture wars arose, activists and politicians in both parties tried to push back against a rising tide of pop culture content that they deemed to be obscene or profane. Dee Snider, lead singer for heavy metal band Twisted Sister, testifies before Congress in 1985 to resist these regulatory efforts. (Photo: C-SPAN)
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Many parts of the country, including inner-city American communities such as the one in this picture of a storefront in Detroit, Michigan, did not witness the uneven benefits of the economic revival that took place under President Reagan. (Photo: Barbara Alper/Getty Images)
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Defying expectations, President Reagan (left), who had made much of his name fighting against “détente” with communism, reached a historic arms agreement with the Soviet Union. The negotiations between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Reagan, which started in November 1985 (pictured), culminated with the Intermediate Range Nuclear Treaty in 1987. (Photo: Ronald Reagan Presidential Library/National Archives)
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Modern political campaigns became nastier and more divisive as polarization rigidified in the electorate. Lee Atwater, one of the masterminds of the new campaign style, orchestrated a brutal attack against 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis to bolster the standing of Vice President George H. W. Bush. This photo op, staged by Dukakis’s campaign, backfired when Atwater used the image to paint the Democrat as weak on defense. (Photo: Steve Liss/LIFE Magazine/Getty Images)
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President George H. W. Bush, who received praise for the care with which he handled the collapse of the Soviet Union, faced his first major military crisis when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bush believed that it was time for the nation to overcome the “Vietnam Syndrome” that had prevented the use of military force since the 1960s. The president enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner with troops on November 22, 1990, shortly before they were sent into combat. (Photo: George H. W. Bush Presidential Library)
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The bombing of Baghdad during the Gulf War on January 17, 1991, was covered around the clock by cable news and gave many citizens the impression that new technology offered a “bloodless” way to reassert American power overseas. (Photo: Laurent Van Der Stockt/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images)
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Supreme Court nominations grew more divisive as the parties moved farther apart on Capitol Hill. Anita Hill, a law professor at the University of Oklahoma, testifying in 1991 that Bush’s nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her. (Photo: C-SPAN)
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Racial tensions exploded during the Los Angeles riots in 1992 following the acquittal of four white Los Angeles police officers for the beating of African American motorist Rodney King. (Photo: Gary Leonard/Corbis/Getty Images)
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Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh sits at his desk at Talk Radio 700 KSEV during the 1992 Republican National Convention in Houston. (Photo: Shepard Sherbell/CORBIS SABA/Getty Images)
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In 1993, President Bill Clinton pushed through Congress the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement that had been signed by his predecessor, President George H. W. Bush. When the two men joined hands to kick off the agreement in September 1993, many Democrats were upset with the president for endorsing a free trade agreement that they believed would cost American workers many jobs. (Photo: Bill Clinton Presidential Library)
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First Lady Hillary Clinton headed the task force for President Clinton’s unsuccessful health care plan in 1993. (Photo: Jeffrey Markowitz/Sygma/Getty Images)
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In 1994, Republican Newt Gingrich capitalized on the backlash against President Clinton’s health care proposal with the Contract with America. Republicans retook control of Congress for the first time since 1954. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/AFP/Getty Images)
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The bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 brought the dangers of white extremism to the forefront of public attention. (Photo: FEMA Photo Library)
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Howard Stern was a mainstream phenomenon by the mid-1990s, reflecting the liberalization of popular culture that angered so many activists on the right. His depictions of women, gays and lesbians, and minorities also angered many on the left. Here Stern is interviewed by the comedian Joan Rivers. The LIFE Picture Collection (Photo: Time & Life Pictures)
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The news became more openly partisan in the 1990s with the establishment of media outlets that reported information from one political perspective. Conservatives proved to be particularly effective at setting up these operations. Rupert Murdoch shakes hands with Roger Ailes after naming Ailes the head of Fox News in New York City in January 1996. (Photo: Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images)
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The House of Representatives votes to impeach President Bill Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice on December 19, 1998. (Photo: C-SPAN)
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Two newspapers have very different interpretations of the 2000 election the morning after. (Photo: Henny Ray Abrams/AFP/Getty Images)
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Pedestrians walk across the Brooklyn Bridge away from the burning World Trade Center towers before their collapse on September 11, 2001. (Photo: Henny Ray Abrams/AFP/Getty Images)
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President George W. Bush talks to Vice President Dick Cheney on the telephone during a flight on Air Force One on 9/11. (Photo: George W. Bush Presidential Library)
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The unity over the administration’s response to 9/11 quickly fell apart, especially after the administration sent troops into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein. The war turned into a military and political quagmire, as American forces were frequently targeted by improvised explosive devices. Here a car bomb has detonated in South Baghdad, 2005. (Photo: US Army)
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Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in August 2005. The effects fell hardest on the African American community. President George W. Bush’s slow response hurt his political standing. (Photo: Gary Nichols/US Navy)
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