Editorial: The Impact of the Trump Administration on Families in the United States

• Author: Jay L. Lebow
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• Date: 01 September 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12387

SEPTEMBER 2018 VOLUME 57 NUMBER 3

Editorial: The Impact of the Trump Administration on

Families in the United States

JAY L. LEBOW*

Fam Proc 57:589–593, 2018

Donald Trump has now been president of the United States for 1.5 years. It goes with-

out saying that this has been a challenging time for people in the United States and

around the world in a wide-ranging variety of ways. This piece focuses on the challenges

the Trump presidency has created for families and the consequent challenge raised for

family scientists and family therapists. Unfortunately, family policy is only one of many

problems that have emerged, but one that affects people the most and one with enormous

repercussions.

Clearly, this is the worst of times for families in the United States. The worst of times?

How to say that in a country that has confronted world wars and cataclysmic economic

depressions. Yet, there is a demoralization afoot beyond the times of crisis when the chal-

lenges were external. It is a foundational tenet of family systems theory that what occurs

in one system level impacts other system levels (Carr, 2016). This is among the reasons

family therapists have always paid considerable attention to the larger system; it perme-

ates everywhere. Let us recite some of the ways that the Trump years have clearly nega-

tively impacted families.

Most of all, Donald Trump and his administration have been the prime movers bolster-

ing a spirit of division and denigration over cooperation, mutual support, and respect. This

provides a crescendo to a trend that has been moving in this direction for a generation, but

Trump has initiated what has become a systemic runaway that has sprinted in this direc-

tion. This onslaught of bad behavior in the wake of this division also stands out in marked

contrast to the calm and wisdom brought to governing by Barack Obama, even in the most

provocative situations. The point here is not about the direction of specific decisions, but

about ways the language is used, reasoning applied, and affects generated and stoked.

Trump has brought a venal, confrontative language to everything and implored his follow-

ers to be similarly disrespectful and bullying.

*Editor, Family Process, and The Family Insitute at Northwestern, Evanston, IL.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jay L. Lebow, Family Institute at North-

western, 618 Library Place, Evanston, IL 60201. E-mail: j-lebow@northwestern.edu.

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Family Process, Vol. 57, No. 3, 2018 ©2018 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12387