Contributor(s): Professor Stephen Skowronek | The presidency of Donald Trump is so readily labeled "not normal" and "off-the charts" that it is hard to think of it any other way. Stephen Skowronek examines long-running patterns in the politics of presidential leadership to sort out what is new, and what is not, in the Trump phenomenon. In Skowronek hands presidential history is not a gauzy backdrop to something anomalous, but a critical source of insight into contemporary American politics. Stephen Skowronek is the Pelatiah Perit Professor of Political and Social Science at Yale University. He has published extensively on the development of American national Institutions and on the American presidency. His books include The Politics Presidents Make, Presidential Leadership in Political Time, and most recently, with Karen Orren, The Policy State: An American Predicament. He is currently the Winant Visiting Professor of American Government at the Rothermere American Institute in Oxford. Peter Trubowitz (@ptrubowitz) is Department Head of International Relations and Director of the US Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs. The LSE's United States Centre (@LSE_US) is a hub for global expertise, analysis and commentary on America. Our mission is to promote policy-relevant and internationally-oriented scholarship to meet the growing demand for fresh analysis and critical debate on the United States.