Will AI be Writing Newspaper Editorials Soon?
My June 17 Substack, ChatGPT Analyzes Joe Biden and Donald Trump, drew the largest audience, 2,200 views, since I started posting seven months ago. Many readers responded either in the comments section or via email. Several suggested I biased ChatGPT’s response by asking for a psychological profile. As one subscriber commented, “…like many voters I am not as interested in a ‘psych pro’ which focuses on personality and much more interested in a policy comparison.”
That’s a valid point. So I’ve rephrased my previous request. This week I asked ChatGPT for an analysis of the two presidencies in the style of a Wall Street Journal editorial. The Journal is a conservative newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch who also owns the New York Post and Fox News.
Other than light formatting, I made no changes to ChatGPT’s response.
I wrote:
Analyze the presidencies of Donald Trump (2017-2020) and Joe Biden (2021-2024) and write a 1,000 word summary in the style of a Wall Street Journal editorial.
ChatGPT responded:
Two Presidencies, One Divided Nation
by the Editorial Board
As we move past another election cycle and brace for yet another potential rematch, it is worth casting a sober, discerning eye over the last two presidencies: Donald Trump’s four tumultuous years from 2017 to 2021, and Joe Biden’s term from 2021 through 2024. These were not just two different administrations—they were two fundamentally different theories of governance. One was brashly populist, often erratic but economically muscular. The other was institutionalist, rhetorically calm but economically muddled and geopolitically cautious. Both left their mark—and their scars—on the American body politic.
Donald Trump came to office in 2017 on the back of a populist wave that scorned Washington elites, celebrated economic nationalism, and promised to “drain the swamp.” In practice, his administration delivered a raft of traditional conservative wins on economic policy, coupled with an unconventional, often chaotic political style that alienated independents and alarmed allies abroad.
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act remains his administration’s signature legislative achievement. It lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% and offered modest relief to middle-class earners. Critics bemoaned its impact on the deficit, but its defenders point to strong GDP growth in 2018 and record-low unemployment before the pandemic hit.
Trump’s deregulatory agenda, spearheaded by then-OIRA chief Neomi Rao, was methodical and aggressive. Environmental rules were relaxed, Dodd-Frank banking provisions were pared back, and bureaucratic inertia was actively confronted. This regulatory rollback, combined with the tax reform, helped produce a business-friendly climate that lifted corporate confidence.
But Trump’s trade policy departed sharply from GOP orthodoxy. He launched a tariff war with China, imposed levies on European allies, and pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The tariffs were politically popular in some quarters but economically mixed. Manufacturing did not return en masse, supply chains grew more fragile, and retaliatory tariffs hurt American exporters, especially in agriculture.
Foreign policy under Trump was a spectacle of contradiction. The Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab nations were historic. His pressure campaign on NATO to increase defense spending yielded measurable gains. Yet his transactional diplomacy, unpredictable decisions (e.g., the sudden Syria withdrawal), and admiration for autocrats unnerved America’s traditional allies.
Perhaps no issue defines Trump’s presidency more than his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Operation Warp Speed delivered vaccines in record time—a major public-private triumph. But the White House’s communication was inconsistent and often scientifically dubious, exacerbating mistrust and fueling division.
The final year of Trump’s term was marred by election denialism culminating in the January 6 Capitol riot. Whatever one thinks of his policies, his refusal to concede defeat and role in stoking post-election unrest damaged democratic norms and sullied his legacy.
Joe Biden entered office promising to restore “the soul of the nation” and to govern as a unifying moderate. In temperament, he was the antithesis of Trump—low-key, institutionalist, and focused on process. But in policy terms, Biden embraced one of the most ambitious progressive agendas since the Great Society.
The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan passed in March 2021, on party lines, was meant to jolt the economy out of its pandemic malaise. In hindsight, it overshot the mark. Inflation, once thought dormant, roared back. Supply chain bottlenecks played a role, but so did excess demand stoked by direct stimulus checks and expanded benefits. The Federal Reserve was slow to act, and for most of 2022, real wages lagged behind price increases.
Biden’s subsequent legislative achievements were more targeted. The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill—finally addressing America’s decaying roads, bridges, and broadband—was a throwback to the deal-making politics of yesteryear. The CHIPS and Science Act aimed to reshore semiconductor manufacturing, spurred by China tensions. And the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), despite its misleading name, was a climate-and-healthcare bill in disguise—laden with green subsidies, tax credits, and price controls on prescription drugs.
Unlike Trump, Biden expanded regulation. His administration reinstated or intensified rules on energy, labor, and finance. The SEC, FTC, and NLRB all pursued more activist agendas. The EPA, bolstered by the IRA’s climate provisions, ramped up its oversight of emissions, risking higher costs for American industry.
Foreign policy under Biden reverted to multilateralism—but with caveats. He strengthened alliances and led NATO support for Ukraine following Russia’s 2022 invasion. The $100+ billion in aid to Kyiv, however, became a partisan flashpoint, and Biden struggled to articulate a clear endgame. His withdrawal from Afghanistan, though initiated under Trump, was executed chaotically and damaged U.S. credibility.
China policy saw more continuity than change. Biden kept most of Trump’s tariffs in place, intensified investment restrictions, and further supported Taiwan militarily. Yet rhetoric softened, and diplomatic engagement resumed.
Immigration was Biden’s weakest flank. His reversal of Trump-era enforcement policies coincided with a record influx at the southern border. Overwhelmed systems and inconsistent messaging fueled bipartisan criticism, even as Democrats hesitated to back tougher reforms.
Social policy, meanwhile, lurched leftward. Biden embraced expansive DEI mandates across government and education, backed federal protections for abortion rights post-Dobbs, and championed student debt relief, much of which was blocked or narrowed by the courts. These initiatives satisfied his base but deepened the cultural polarization he once pledged to heal.
In economic terms, Trump focused on supply-side incentives and deregulation; Biden favored fiscal expansion and industrial policy. Trump lowered taxes and reduced federal oversight. Biden raised spending, reshaped entitlement structures, and picked market winners in green tech.
In foreign policy, Trump distrusted alliances and pursued unilateral deals; Biden relied on alliances but struggled with coherence. Both viewed China as a strategic threat, though with different tools and tones.
In political style, Trump was pugilistic and personalistic—an avatar for grievance-driven populism. Biden, though more restrained, often found himself at the mercy of his party’s progressive wing, governing less as the centrist he campaigned as and more as a manager of the Democratic coalition’s leftward drift.
Neither man healed the divisions they inherited. Trump inflamed the culture wars; Biden institutionalized them. Trump delegitimized elections; Biden presided over a justice system increasingly seen through a partisan lens. The center has not held—it has withered.
As the electorate contemplates the next chapter, voters are not choosing between competence and chaos, as partisans would have them believe. They are choosing between two stark models of governance—each with its own risks, rewards, and unresolved contradictions.
Trump, for all his flaws, reconnected the GOP with working-class anxieties and challenged bipartisan complacency. But his assault on democratic norms and inability to govern beyond grievance remains disqualifying for many.
Biden offered stability and experience but presided over inflation, regulatory overreach, and a border crisis, all while aging visibly in office and appearing out of step with an anxious public.
The American experiment endures. But it now rests on uneasy ground—polarized, fatigued, and still reckoning with the legacies of two consequential presidencies that offered competing visions, neither of which has yet delivered the unity or prosperity they promised.
Remarkable, isn’t it? Only a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable that an artificial intelligence could have researched and written the above editorial, and in just a few seconds. Or had I asked, instantly translated the editorial into any of several dozen languages.
But how accurate, fair, and balanced—the mantra of every responsible journalist—was ChatGPT’s editorial?
You be the judge. Take the anonymous poll to tell us how you would grade ChatGPT as an objective journalist. (A liberal bias, for example, means the editorial tends to favor a liberal perspective.) I’ll publish the final results next week.
I don't have the hard data but I would tend to believe that it would be hard to get a politically balanced, non-partisan *psychological* profile as was asked of the AI. The issue is with the training data and as soon as you invoked psychology the pendulum was already moved left. AI could do the best it could to return to center but I believe that the bias would always be left leaning due to the training data the AI was built on. As a case in point, I recently attended the psychology class graduation for MSU. I was expecting a left lean but was astounded by how bad it really was. Within the first 1-2 sentences of the commencement the very left lean of the school was in plain view. In fact, it was clear there zero genuine opportunity for open dialog or dissenting thoughts from the graduates or even the audience who were even queried for their opinion (agreement) at some points. It was so bad that I looked up MSU's rules for these speakers and found that the most significant rules designed to keep these events non-partisan were openly broken. I found this very disappointing but maybe it should have been expected from higher learning in America today? Based on this (limited) experience plus the likely left lean of published content from this field, my belief is that the AI the first time around would have been struggling to find center.
This second attempt is far more balanced... perhaps too balanced for some but I think overall does a better job of raising the pros and cons of both men and their administrations. It is certainly more in line with traditional journalism that provides the readers with the facts and then lets them come to their own conclusion.
Good question. I'll do that later this year after the dust settles.