During Donald Trump’s four-year term, many new Republican candidates have been elected to Congress. Often backed by the former president from the GOP’s primaries, they were chosen for their devotion towards him and their support for his policies : moral conservatism and laissez-faire attitudes towards fiscal and environmental issues are old Republican tenets taken over by Trump, while nativist and economic nationalism (based on anti-immigration and protectionist policies respectively), as well as the portrayal of White people without college degree as an oppressed minority are fresh precepts brought forward by the former populist President.

From the 1920s to the 1980s, the American press followed strict discursive practices based on objectivity and fairness. Starting in the 1930s, the country's political center of gravity was on the liberal side and there were few overtly conservative media.

With the death of Justice Antonin Scalia on February 13, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States lost a beacon of conservative thought and one of the most influential American jurists of the last thirty years. The question of his replacement immediately became an issue as the United States looks forward to the presidential election in November. While past nominations to the Supreme Court have been relatively uncontentious, nominations today are affected by the polarization of American politics.