If you need a laugh, try to imagine Joe Biden or any recent president holding court in the way Donald Trump is doing it.
If you need a laugh, try to imagine Joe Biden or any recent president holding court in the way Donald Trump is doing it.
To double the laugh, try to imagine any of the current presidential wannabes sitting in the big chair in the Oval Office.
It’s an impossible exercise because of how dramatically Trump is redefining what it means to be president of the United States.
His talents are vast and uniquely suited to the role he has created.
For the most recent and dramatic example, take Monday’s historic meeting of European leaders about Russia’s unrelenting invasion of Ukraine.
It was the kind of key event that, had it been held under past presidents or vice presidents, would have been smothered in formalities and endless bland statements.
Yet there was Trump, sitting behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, facing the heads of major allies, including Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky and the leaders of NATO and the EU.
They were sitting in chairs, like so many students arrayed around their teacher.Skeptics miss the point
The skeptics who scoff at Trump’s gilding and redecorating of the Oval Office are missing the bigger and far more important aspect of what is happening there.
No. 47 is the greatest impresario ever to hold the office, and he is bringing the presidency, its majesty and his quirks, into homes in America and around the world in ways that are as refreshing as they are unprecedented.
Just as he remade the Republican Party into a diverse workers and middle-class party, Trump is creating new models and expectations for how presidents should conduct the public’s business and carry out their duties.
Start with the media.
Including his first term but especially from the start of his second term, Trump has been the most accessible president ever.
If there’s a question he hasn’t answered, it’s because the question hasn’t been asked.
Because of how he lives out loud in front of the camera, never again will it be acceptable for a commander in chief to emerge from the Oval Office, read a canned speech from a teleprompter, take a few questions from pre-selected reporters, mumble incoherent answers, then shuffle off stage for a long nap.
Enough about Biden, but Trump has expanded the presidential footprint and captured public attention in ways that will play a role in shaping the conduct of his successors.
