Donald Trump has escaped criticism for the $2 trillion Covid-19 stimulus. A Democratic president would not have.

Last week President Trump signed an unprecedented $2 trillion stimulus bill aimed at protecting workers and businesses threatened by the Covid-19 pandemic. Perhaps equally surprising was the relative lack of opposition from Republicans, who at other times are opposed to increased government spending and growing deficits. Drawing on their work on how party-supporters feel about budget deficits and how the media reports on them, Ian G. Anson and John V. Kane write that these supporters are less concerned about deficits when a president from their own party holds the White House. The role of conservative media, they comment, means that this effect is especially stark for a Republican president like Donald Trump.