When asked about reactions to Donald Trump being president, a 16-year-old Black girl said, 'I feel unsafe and not protected. The United States is supposed to be the land of the free but is really the land of racism.' These two teenagers responded very differently to the racial climate created by Trump ' during his first presidency. Research on adolescents during Trump's first term takes on new relevance now that he is back in office. As a scholar of adolescent development, I have studied U.S. teenagers for over two decades. When Trump took office in 2016, I was in the midst of leading a five-year study to understand how young people become civically engaged. My colleagues and I were tracking adolescents' beliefs and behaviors over time, which gave us a unique opportunity to document changes after Trump was elected. Focusing on 1,400 ninth through 12th graders, I hypothesized that adolescents would become more divided during Trump's presidency, given the political divisions evident...
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