Below is an essay by Ifeoluwakiishi Bayo-Awonaike, Christ’s Hospital
This essay won the prize ‘Best use of evidence (joint winner)‘ in the inaugural FT-APG A Level Essay Competition, which was part of a broader project between the American Politics Group the Political Studies Association and the Schools Programme of the Financial Times. This project was funded by the excellence and impact funding of the Political Studies Association.
Andrew R. Wines, Assistant Head – Scholarship, Christ’s Hospital congratulated Ifeoluwakiishi Bayo-Awonaike, saying:
‘Christ’s Hospital congratulates Ifeoluwakiishi for jointly winning the ‘Best use of evidence’ award in the FT-APG A Level Essay Competition. Ifeoluwakiishi demonstrated personal initiative in entering the competition, and her independent research exemplified the highest standards of scholarship. Her dedication to learning for its own sake enabled her to tackle a political topic highly relevant to current US affairs. The school is grateful to the organisers of the FT-APG A Level Essay Competition for encouraging students to embrace academic rigour and integrity.’
Does President Donald J. Trump represent an anomaly or reflect a broader strand of thought and action in American politics?
In 2016, Donald Trump coined the phrase ‘Make America Great Again’ as his campaign slogan. It was founded on the belief that America was once a great country but has since lost its status due to foreign influences. This is a nativist political movement founded on an ideology that prioritizes the interests and well-being of native-born or long-established residents of a given country over those of immigrants.1 President Donald J. Trump was first inaugurated on January 20, 2017. It was in that service that he made the pledge to ‘end American carnage’ claiming that America’s ‘wealth, strength, and confidence has dissipated’ and he would bring this back with the plan to put ‘America First’.2 In his terms as president, Donald Trump has made clear his stances on certain issues such as the economy where he wanted to ‘end inflation and make America affordable again’ as well as reducing taxes for businesses and the wealthy and increasing tariffs to generate more money. With regards to immigration, unsurprisingly his stance is to ‘Build the wall’ which was also another slogan of his. He has promised the biggest mass deportations of undocumented migrants in US history.3 All of this begs the question, to what extent is Donald Trump an anomaly in American politics?
Politico’s Jack Shafer was under the opinion that Donald Trump is indeed an anomaly and isn’t quite comparable to any other American politician. According to them, Fire and Fury has cemented Trump’s reputation “as a shallow, narcissistic, dim, post-literate, impulsive, temperamental and doddering buffoon who blusters and lurches from crisis to crisis”. Building on Shafer, Peter Finn and Robert Ledger thought that of all Trump’s 44 predecessors, none had come close to fitting that description.4
One way that Donald Trump has presented himself as an anomaly in American politics is through his entry into politics. Arriving late into the primaries stage as a dark-horse candidate for the Republican party, he brought attention to himself through controversial statements and direct messages to the masses where he spoke his mind. This may have been refreshing to many who would have been used to perceiving politicians as secretive people who held information back. Contrary to that view, Trump was extremely open and said whatever he felt like regardless of who his words would affect or ‘rub the wrong way’.
On the other hand many Americans were intrigued by Trump’s words and the thoughts that he always shared because most of them felt that he was verbalizing the things they’d been saying privately for years. This suggests that perhaps Trump isn’t an anomaly but simply more likely to openly share his way of thinking than most Americans. He also wasn’t the only politician to have such a dark-horse entry into politics. James K. Polk was also known as a dark-horse as he was a relatively unknown candidate during the 1844 presidential elections. His opponents, members of the Whig party, chanted, “Who is James K. Polk?”.5 This was due to his image as the protégé of Andrew Jackson, and he was portrayed him as inexperienced compared to his opponent who was nationally known governor of Tennessee and speaker of the United States House of Representatives. Later James K. Polk became known as a ‘strong and decisive wartime president’ because ‘he stretched the executive role by avoiding a congressional declaration of war, and by taking a hands-on approach to questions of strategy and command.’6
Like Polk, Donald Trump has made use of executive orders to quicken the pace of actions taking place and reduce the chances of Congress shutting his operations down. Actions like these have led him to find himself successful in war stating that he had ‘settled seven wars. We’re close to settling an eighth, and I think we’ll end up settling the Russia situation’.7 which is probably why he expected to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize which originally went to María Corina Machado, the opposition leader of the Venezuelan government before she awarded it to him following his actions taken against President Maduro. This temerity, similar to James K. Polk, established Donald Trump’s actions and strand of thought as something that may have always been present in American politics.
Another way that Trump has presented himself as an anomaly is his nativist ideologies mostly shown through his MAGA movement, meaning to ‘make America great again.’ The fact that he has founded and spearheaded this movement makes it seem as though his strand of thought is new. This movement has also been thought to have an ‘antagonistic relationship’ with most popular and traditional media, which may be biased against MAGA views.8 This suggests that Trump’s ideas and MAGA movement are indeed something new that Americans haven’t experienced, and for the most part dislike. This, therefore, portrays Trump as an anomaly.
On the other hand, through Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan it could be argued that the use of the word ‘again’ makes us think about how nativism is not something new but an ideology that has existed and carried on through time. These ideas have merely been suppressed for a time, and all Donald Trump is doing is bringing this idea back rather than it being an entirely new one. For example, the Know-Nothings, led by Millard Fillmore, were against immigration, and exhibited these nativist behaviours in extremist ways. They believed that foreigners had ‘no right to dictate our laws and therefore had no ground to complain if Americans saw proper to exclude them from offices of trust.’9 This is very similar, if not the same, to views that Trump holds which presents him as a broader strand of thought in American Politics.
Another way that Donald Trump has been presented as an anomaly is due to his policies and stances on law and order and war. Trump has been found to be unlike any other US president in his willingness to discard the laws of war, including international law. This could most recently be shown by the example of the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president and his wife. This arguably violated international law but that didn’t deter Trump from making such a move. Later, with the help of Israel, he started a war with Iran. A BBC news article stated how Democrats had argued that ‘Trump has sidelined Congress and offered shifting reasons for the war’.10 This demonstrates how willing he was to limit the power of Congress in order to achieve his own agendas with as little opposition as possible. He has a majority in Congress which may cause people to question why he feels the need to block them out when that majority gives him leverage to get his will passed easily. This is most likely because he was aware that even members of his own party would choose to vote against him, meaning he knew the controversy of his actions and didn’t trust that he would have a lot of support in them. This alienation from his own party separates him from what it means to be a typical Republican president and highlights a lack of the support that most other presidents had at least from their party members in the past. This presents him as an anomaly due to his approaches to policies and actions that broadly differ from his political party’s ideals.
However, it could be argued that Donald Trump’s policies and stances represent a broader stand of American thought due to similarities with President Richard Nixon. Like Donald Trump, he displayed a ‘monarchical view of his powers’, claiming that “When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.”11 This could explain why Trump was able to confidently claim that he was not in the wrong for actions such as taking the president of Venezuela or threats to take over Greenland. Arguably, he may think that as president, he should get whatever he wants regardless of what exactly the law says because rules can bend. Trump has been able to maintain this view of his powers, and it has been noticed that ‘the Trump administration [is] really pushing just [a] flurry of executive actions’12 in order to do so. Such relations to President Richard Nixon suggest that Trump is in fact not an anomaly in American politics.
In conclusion, Donald Trump does not quite represent an anomaly but an old-fashioned broader strand of thought and action in American politics. However, those that are similar to him such as the Know Nothings and Richard Nixon, are from a different time and such thought processes are different in the modern 21st century world we live in today which is why it may seem that Donald Trump is an anomaly despite similar people coming before him. His actions and words are also louder today and more controversial due to the changing perspectives and the world progresses which makes him stand out more. Therefore, Donald Trump is not quite an anomaly due to similarities to past presidents and presidential candidates but the broader strand of thought and action in American politics that he represents is not completely modern and instead of a different time.
1 Volle, A. January 16, 2026. “MAGA movement.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/MAGA-movement. (Accessed: 03.02.26).
2 Wikipedia contributors. 2026. “First presidency of Donald Trump.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=First_presidency_of_Donald_Trump&oldid=1340083142. (Accessed: 24.02.26).
3 BBC News. 2024. “Where Donald Trump stands on 10 key issues, from tax to Israel”. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2l1qd1nwnjo. (Accessed: 03.02.26).
4 Finn, P. and Ledger, R. (2018) ‘Fire and Fury aside, what can you read to understand Trump?’, The Conversation (January 8). Available at: https://theconversation.com/fire-and-fury-aside-what-can-you-read-to-understand-trump-89807 (Accessed: 10/02/2026).
5 The Whitehouse Historical Association. (2006). ‘Often referred to as the first “dark horse,” James K. Polk was the 11th President of the United States from 1845 to 1849, the last strong President until the Civil War’ Available at: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/james-k-polk/?utm_source=link (Accessed: 09.03.26).
6 Pryor, Elizabeth Brown. “Conflict, Chaos, and Confidence: Abraham Lincoln’s Struggle as Commander in Chief.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 129, no. 1, 2021, pp. 2–79. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26980027. (Accessed 5 Feb. 2026).
7 Swamp Notes podcast (2025) ‘Is Donald Trump the president of peace?’, Financial Times (10 October). Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/f9a1db67-ceb5-4498-a817-c7ee2d2588fc (Accessed: 13/11/2025).
8 Volle, A. January 16, 2026. “MAGA movement.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/MAGA-movement. (Accessed: 03.02.26).
9 White, John Kenneth, and Matthew R. Kerbel. “The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Party Politics.” American Political Parties: Why They Formed, How They Function, and Where They’re Headed, University Press of Kansas, 2022, pp. 26–43. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2k88td2.7. (Accessed: 10.03.26).
10 BBC News. 2026. Did Trump declare war and did Congress approve Iran attacks? What to know. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626ljyvmg3o. (Accessed: 12.03.26).
11 The King’s Two Bodies: Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon, & Presidential Self-Sacrifice.” The Massachusetts Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 1979, pp. 553–73. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25088986. (Accessed 10 Feb. 2026).
12 Swamp Notes podcast (2025) ‘How the Supreme Court can change the course of Trump’s presidency’, Financial Times (September 12). Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/a744e6fd-7da7-40f0-bb11-b4ebd5b2cfe5 (Accessed: 13/11/2025).
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