Talk:History of the United States (2016–present)

New history article

I'm in favor of splitting this article after Joe Biden's presidency is concluded into a "History of the United States (2024/2025-present)" page. 2008-2025 is going to be 17 years. The same exact length as the 1991-2008 article.

According to The Economist and other sources, there's a consensus among historians Trump's second term heralds a new historic epoch in American history. A new party system has emerged, a political realignment has been nearly completed, and issues from 2008 are now far distant.

Historiography is inherently a fickle subject, but if we're going to split the pages based upon political eras or trends, November 5, 2024 or January 20, 2025 is better than any other potential pick. OntologicalTree (talk) 23:01, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

I would propose changing the start date of this page to have it begin in 2016 as Trump has dominated the American sociopolitical landscape since that time. The 1991-2008 article could be readjusted to 2001-2016 and the 1980-1991 article be readjusted to 1980-2001. HawkNightingale175 (talk) 17:14, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

It's going to be very difficult to determine a split, but one needs to be made. I agree with the above editor that 2016-present makes the most sense, but to just have the preceding article change from 1991-2016 (post-cold war; increasing partisanship; focus on middle east) and then this article be 2016-present (trump era). Yeoutie (talk) 17:13, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

History of the United States 2008-2024

This needs to be changed now from 2008-2024/25 DharMannMan (talk) 04:01, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

It lasts the same time as 1991-2008 DharMannMan (talk) 04:02, 28 January 2025 (UTC)

Second Cold War or Trump?

Should this era (2016-present) be referred to as the Second Cold War era or the Trump era? GN22 (talk) 15:25, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Against “Trump Era”

Very few deny that Donald Trump’s presidential victory in 2016 was historically significant; however, I still don’t believe that 2016 is an appropriate start date for our current era. Avoiding recency bias is ideal, and we need to acknowledge that Donald Trump's first electoral victory did not randomly occur for no apparent reason. While there is still debate over why exactly he won, I don’t think it’s outlandish to suggest that Trump’s “populist” and “anti-establishment” rhetoric would have been appealing to the working class if it were not for the nation's deteriorating middle class, and the real catalyst for that was the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. While Obama was, in fact, elected during this period, realistically, the GOP was already beginning to plan and veer more toward the version we are familiar with today. If anything, McCain and Romney’s losses in 2008 and 2012 serve as a testament to the fact that establishment candidates were already beginning to lose popularity among their base. Because of these factors, I believe 2008-2016 is much better suited as the early roots of our current U.S. era, rather than the end of the post-Cold War period. Bob200505722 (talk) 19:31, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Support Trump’s political victory occurred in large part due to his (and the Republican Party in general) appeal with working- and middle-class voters who were dissatisfied with the economy. The 2008 financial crisis and recession played a large part in that.

Within the past few weeks, this page has began to refer to the past nine years as the "Second Cold War" era. Whether we are in a second Cold War is still disputed and I think that, until the answer is clear among the majority of secondary sources, we should revert this page back to how it was before it was moved (covering 2008 and onward). In the future, historians may look back on this last decade or so very differently than we do today. I think we should split 2008 to the present into 2008-2015 (the Obama years) and 2016 to the present (Trump’s political career). GN22 (talk) 05:10, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I 100% agree. Finn Bolton (talk) 12:25, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Oppose — Trump's political career has defined American history since 2016, regardless of possible underlying causes. Nearly every reliable prediction showed the Democratic Party maintaining control in the 2016 presidential election. The cultural and political effects are seen in many protests, demonstrations, plays, and films - catalyzed by Trump's political presence. His selection as TIME person of the year in 2016 and 2024 is also a notable indicator. As far as recency bias, we are approaching a decade since the announcement of Trump's initial candidacy. Additionally, the Reagan era was defined during the period, simultaneously with the Cold War. The Trump Era is the most accurate and appropriate description of the time period. Rochambeau1783 (talk) 13:59, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I would agree with this. Before the most recent election there was a debate on whether to create a new page for US history after either 2020 or after 2016 and shift the start date of the page for US history since 2008 back to 2001 (9/11), making it 2001-2016. Ultimately it was decided that the discussion would wait until after the 2024 election took place. Ultimately it was decided that the page's start date would be altered to 2016 precisely because Trump was re-elected, marking a clear era (2016-2028) that would be dominated by Trump's two presidencies. Additionally it was decided that the page for 1991-2008 would be extended to 2016 due to worsening effects of climate change, a foreign policy focus on the Middle East, among other things. HawkNightingale175 (talk) 18:19, 13 March 2025 (UTC)

The history of the United States since 1991 page used to referred to itself as the contemporary era, so we can follow that unless there is consensus supported by enough citations to reliable sources. There are enough reliable sources to establish pages for the Second Cold War, Second Gilded Age, and the Reagan Era. Grover Cleveland is the only other U.S. president to serve nonconsecutive terms but there is no page for a Grover Cleveland era. Wikipedia relies on citations to reliable sources, not our original research. It may have been premature to move this page to 2016-present from 2008-present, rather keeping it as is or 2014-present. --Plumber (talk) 21:26, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Why would it be 2014-present?  Finn Bolton (talk) 06:35, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

That was the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War, but it would make more sense for an article about the history of Russia. We clearly have talk page consensus here against naming this part of history Trump era, as it is too premature given the dearth of reliable sources. It is also not standard Wikipedia practice to remove entire sections of an article while claiming this is "trimming" the article. --Plumber (talk) 02:10, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Level of detail

Beginning on 10 March Plumber has been making massive additions to this article, eg [1] and [2], nearly doubling its size and inserting a wildly excessive amount of detail. I attempting to rationalize[3] some of this overdetail, but Plumber has reverted these efforts, citing an essay and ignoring the policy that places the responsibility on them to achieve consensus for these changes. I propose as a starting point reverting that edit pending said consensus, but consideration should be given to reverting further - this isn't the correct page for eg. multiple paragraphs of pre-2016 background on events in the Middle East. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:55, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

One cannot properly understand the current era of the United States without also understanding China, which is why Xi Jinping getting his own section is appropriate. Expanding articles is the entire point of editing Wikipedia, and I'm a bit puzzled why an editor thinks this is a bad thing. WP:Wikipedia is not paper is quite clear. Plumber (talk) 03:02, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

WP:Wikipedia is not paper is indeed quite clear: "Editors should limit individual articles to a reasonable size to keep them accessible". Inserting entire sections that are more appropriately covered by other pages does not achieve that. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:06, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Given the {{very long}} tag added by Moxy and the above, I've removed some of the disputed additions, as they are excessively detailed for this article. I note in fact that most if not all of this material was copied without attribution; repairing is needed for the content that remains.

Please gain consensus before reinserting these per WP:ONUS. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:15, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Per WP:ONUS and WP:Content removal, consensus must be reached on the talk page to remove remove huge portions of the text. There is no such consensus so I would kindly request you to restore the text --Plumber (talk) 19:41, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Best read over an actual guideline WP:Summary#Article size.... Simply no need to regurgitate the same thing in multiple articles. Moxy🍁 19:44, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Hi Plumber, the policy WP:ONUS states: "The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." You are the editor here seeking to include disputed content, and you have not satisfied your responsibility to achieve consensus for it. Restoration at this point would therefore not be appropriate. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:14, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

None of the content deleted was disputed. I am still waiting to hear an argument on the merits for why each section should be removed. The only removal with any justification was the Middle East before 2016. I engaged with you about the inclusion of Xi Jinping's changes to China, and you did not respond to that. Then you went on to delete several other sections. I am willing to hear out why each section should be removed, but so far there is nothing to dispute because you did not provide a sufficient explanation besides the overall length of the article. --Plumber (talk) 00:20, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

We simply don't need four sections on Donald Trump..... nor do we need more copying pasting from other articles. Moxy🍁 00:28, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

Your edits were reverted, but for the avoidance of doubt: I dispute that this content is appropriate for inclusion in this article.

The content you wish to add is overly detailed and out of scope for this article. Discussion of Xi Jinping's changes to China, along with the other material that you deposited here, is better addressed within the scope of the articles you copied the material from. This is not the appropriate venue to provide a full background of every country and conflict that may influence US history during this period - we have wikilinks available for those who want to learn more about the details that are not directly about this topic. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:30, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

• I have repeated the pruning. It was bloated to the point of unreadability, and we should not be regurgitating the content of other pages to bloat out someone's pet page. - SchroCat (talk) 19:55, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

The page could be shorter, but mass content removal by a user who repeatedly attempted to subtitle this article with the name "The Trump Era" despite lacking reliable sources is not the proper way to edit down the page if we want to avoid concerns about this being someone's pet page. --Plumber (talk) 19:58, 24 March 2025 (UTC)