Contentious Politics in the Trump Era

How ought we understand the Trump era? How can we make sense of the White House’s actions? These questions are important not only for scholars of American politics but for anyone who wants to understand current United States policy. Journalists, politicians, and scholars have all provided a number of perspectives on Trump’s government. While many of them are useful, we have found them incomplete. We provide a different outlook in this Spotlight, which includes several essays that examine recent events in American politics through the lens of the contentious politics literature. These short pieces provide new insights into current events in the United States, offer activists suggestions for real-world action, and suggest several new research directions for scholars of American politics.