How Trump could change America: as Donald Trump prepares to take office this month as the 45th president, a look at six ways his policies and personality could reshape the nation.

• Author: Smith, Patricia
• Position: NATIONAL

After one of the most bitter presidential elections in history, Americans are sharply divided as they await Donald Trump's inauguration.

Half the country thinks that Trump will finally fix what's long been broken in Washington. The other half is deeply concerned that he'll dismantle programs and policies that the U.S. and its allies depend on, and that he lacks the temperament to be president. The only thing everyone agrees on is that a lot of things are likely to change in the next four years, after President Obama leaves the White House.

As Trump prepares to take office on January 20, the country is starting to get a glimpse of how he might govern. It's often said that "politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose," meaning that promises often give way to the realities of winning support for their proposals from lawmakers and the public. Trump has already softened several positions since the election, as winning candidates often do.

One example is Trump's evolving position on Obamacare, the healthcare law that's considered Obama's signature achievement. After months of promising to repeal it, Trump said after his victory that he'd consider keeping some of its most popular features: allowing young people to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26 and guaranteeing that people with pre-existing medical conditions can't be denied insurance.

He could still change his mind and try to repeal the entire law. And in other areas, political analysts expect Trump to more clearly depart from Obama's policies. Here's a look at six ways Trump's presidency could reshape the nation.

(1) Tweeter-in-Chief? Presidential Communication

As a real estate tycoon and former reality TV star--as opposed to a career politician--Trump may change the way presidents communicate with the public. During his 17-month run for the presidency, Trump was famous for middle-of-the-night, off-the-cuff tweeting, often to attack his opponents. He's sent more than 34,000 tweets, enabling him to bypass the mainstream media, which he distrusts, and speak directly to the American people.

If this continues after Trump takes office, it would represent a massive shift in how the president communicates his policies and plans to the world.

"Historically, great care has been taken to make sure that presidents don't misspeak," says Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. That, she explains, is because "every presidential sentence is potentially consequential. Everyone is trying to read his words for clues: Congress, the press, the public, and especially world leaders."

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