Changing Their Minds?

"In George C. Edward III's Changing their Minds? Donald Trump and Presidential Leadership, Edwards looks at the microcosm of Donald Trump's first term as president and uses it to evaluate current theories of the power of presidential persuasion. Edwards contends that the idea of the bully pulpit-the argument that presidents have the ability to persuade the public and members of Congress to support their policies because of their office and the media attention they receive-is nonsense, and that the way presidents accomplish their goals is by identifying strategic opportunities-alliances with rising interest groups or the cultivation of members of Congress-to make progress on issues for which there is already support for the president's position. Edwards is critical of presidents who think they can successfully restructure the politics of the country. His argument is that Trump had relatively limited opportunities to change the dialogue around issues such as health care and has done a bad job of taking advantage of the opportunities that he has been offered, except on taxes. He also looks at the way Trump has dealt with Congress and, placing it in the context of scholarly work on presidential-congressional relations, shows why Trump has been a failure in dealing with the legislature"--