‘I could be sitting at the front row at an award show and I still don’t feel like a cool kid.’
– A 22-year-old Taylor Swift, already a superstar well along her path to world dominion
Threaded through this past momentous January week, amid the grand pomp of an American inauguration, the peaceful handover of power, the breathless flurry of executive orders, the debates over pardon limits, the frigid temperatures, the euphoria and the dysphoria within the United States populace, the prayers, and the partying, there have been a few peculiar memes about Donald Trump’s new status.
Not as the 47th (and 45th) POTUS, not as a fella with a mandate and mojo to spare, not as a former/current leader returning to the Oval Office with newfound clarity and purpose.
The topic: Is Donald J. Trump cool? And, relatedly, can he be considered, at last, a full-fledged, fully accepted, member of the American president’s club, a club so exclusive there are only four other living members, and only 45 members in total, since 1789?
Trump certainly was not uniformly greeted as a worthy colleague when he first took office in 2017, following his shock and awe defeat of more than a baker’s dozen of top tier Republican contenders and his epic vanquishing of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton dynasty.
The snide and dismissive remarks from bold-faced politicians and celebrities, the mocking of Trump’s credentials as a potential policy maker and self-appointed sage, continued throughout the campaign season, well beyond 2016’s Election Day, and all the way through his first term in office.
Barack and Michelle Obama themselves remained stony-faced as they handed over the metaphorical White House keys, and had nary a kind word during the run of Trump’s first administration. Admittedly, the Obama-Trump chronicle had started on a cruel and sour note, with Trump’s accusations about Obama’s birthplace and legitimacy, and both sides trading insults and expressions of mutual disdain.
(Example 1: Obama on Trump, insisting voters would never elect Trump in 2016 because they knew ‘that being president is a serious job… It’s not hosting a talk show or a reality show, it’s not promotion, it’s not marketing, it’s hard. It’s not a matter of pandering and doing whatever will get you in the news on a given day.’ Example 2: Trump on Obama: ‘He’s a terrible president. He’ll probably go down as the worst president in the history of our country. He’s been a total disaster.’)
Trump, meanwhile, never expected to be accepted by the president’s club when he took office in 2017, and said as much. In any case, he was busy with the big job, its tasks huge and unfamiliar even for a global icon who had, at least on the surface, achieved massive success with nearly every new professional venture, from real estate magnate to best-selling author to blockbuster television star.
Whether one considers Trump’s first White House go-round impressive, disastrous, or somewhere in between, it was unquestionably shambolic, dominated by a cult of personality and punctuated by wild Trump tweets, in-house melodrama, and unceasing national nitpicking. The confusion and ugliness of the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, served as an apposite sendoff to Trump’s chaotic, polarizing term.
Even while living inside the White House, Trump remained an outsider of sorts, allowed conceptual entry into the winner’s circle, but held back in the outer borough by a perceived barrier of grace, personality, milieu and taste. For all Trump’s money and celebrity, whether in Manhattan or in Washington, the Queens-born billionaire had never come across as an elite, which is why a 2016 blue collar focus group voter in New Hampshire blithely described him as ‘someone just like me.’
During his first term, the magazine covers and New York Times profiles that Trump coveted were accompanied by withering headlines and scornful narratives. The media landscape was harsh and unsettled, reflecting the unprecedented political chasms in the country. Trump’s interactions with foreign dignitaries often were scrutinized more for stylistic superficialities and culture clashes rather than for political or diplomatic achievements.
Trump had no choice but to shake off the slings and slights, and embed himself more firmly in the embrace of his MAGA base. After four years in office and lessons learned from his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, Trump regrouped and came back strong. He had assists from unlikely sources: a hostile left-leaning media scrum that overplayed its hand and turned off free thinking voters and independents; backfiring federal and state lawfare efforts; and a cover-up of President Biden’s mental decline that led to bedlam within the Democratic Party.
Trump played it smart, showing growth and relative discipline. After surviving two assassination attempts during the summer of 2024, he showed depth and heart. When he won the 2024 election, he showed confidence and conviction.
But what about cool?
It sure looked cool when Trump and Obama were seated together on Jan. 9 at the funeral service for President Jimmy Carter, a celebration of the Georgian’s long life and abundant contributions to the country. Forty-four and 45/7 chatted away, heads together, smiling, chuckling, the two raddest cats in a sea of power and prestige. Kamala Harris, teeth gritted, sat in the tangibly frigid front pew with the Bidens; Bill Clinton was relegated to an aisle seat, spotlight pointed elsewhere.
Afterward, Trump acknowledged the rapprochement. ‘Boy, they look like two people that like each other,’ Trump said of the visuals. ‘And we probably do. We have a little different philosophies, right? But we probably do. I don’t know. We just got along. But I [get] along with just about everybody.’
That rapprochement may have been short-lived, however. Several weeks later, at Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, lip-readers claim Obama cheekily murmured to George W. Bush, ‘How can we stop what’s happening?’ with 43 offering a smirk in reply.
Nevertheless, having been granted the greatest political mulligan in American history, Trump has scored the only prize that ever eluded him – status as a two-term president. And this time around, he has a far more comprehensive and specific vision of what he hopes to accomplish and how he wishes to be remembered when he leaves office in four years.*
Just days into his term, Trump, irrevocably changed by two attempts on his life, and carrying with him the experience of four years in the White House and four years out, may have something more important than cool: a purpose. Trump can weave together some of his greatest strengths: the bulwark of his MAGA fan base, his gifts as history’s greatest presidential television producer, and his profound desire to depart the office, whenever that might be, as one of the POTUS GOATS.
So really, who needs to be cool?**
To return once again to the wise and formidable Taylor Swift: ‘My life doesn’t gravitate towards being edgy, sexy, or cool… I’m imaginative, I’m smart, and I’m hardworking.’
For President Trump and for all of us, those are words to live by.
*Cue the murmurs about lifting the two-term limit on the presidency.
**Cool presidents: Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, JFK (although for some, really more mysterious and glamorous than cool), LBJ, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Barack Obama.
Uncool presidents: John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, Chester B. Arthur, Richard Nixon.
So indifferent to being cool they became cool: George Washington, Jimmy Carter.