Donald Trump Dichotomy

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Recommended: Polarization in US politics

The U.S. presidential election, top of everyone’s mind, provides ample opportunity to examine groupthink within the broader context of democratic change. The results of the most recent election give one a chance to reflect on the patterns that exist within the historical context of the last several elections.
One pattern that does appear to emerge is that of group polarization and the seeming predilection of U.S. voters for risk-seeking behavior manifest in the instrument of change. To be precise, it seems voters display a consistent tendency to pick the riskiest choice of the two candidates presented by major political parties and this choice may reflect an underlying risk-preference in the electorate.
Examining the 2016 presidential election, one can see a clear dichotomy between two candidates who have widely disparate levels of government experience. On the one hand, Donald Trump was a political neophyte, having spent his entire career in the private sector building buildings, selling steaks and so on. Hillary Clinton, for her part, had been in public life since the 1970s and although she had almost no experience actually governing, she did serve one-and-a-third terms as U.S. Senator and four years as Secretary of State. …show more content…

Voters, nevertheless, opted for outside-the-beltway experience by electing Donald Trump to be the next president. Even going back to the primaries, of the field of 17 Republican candidates, Donald Trump had one of the least impressive resumes from the perspective of government experience. Voters, again, opted to make him their

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