Credit Donald Trump with making history on Inauguration Day: he not only was the first modern president to begin a second non-consecutive term but also starred in arguably the first sanctioned political rally inside the US Capitol (frigid weather having relocated the outdoor ceremony to the Rotunda).
The first ten minutes of Trump’s nearly thirty-minute inaugural address (twice as long as his 2017 address) were a sotto voce rendition of election-year grievances: “vicious, violent, and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department,” “a radical and corrupt establishment,” a “Liberation Day” for America’s citizenry.
Trump did shift to more uplifting language toward the end of his oration (“the golden age of America”). But only moments later, at an impromptu appearance in the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall after the swearing-in ceremony, the new president slipped back into campaign mode.
Absent a Teleprompter, Trump called the House investigation of the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot an “unselect committee of political thugs” and branded former congresswoman Liz Cheney “a crying lunatic.”
Then again, it wasn’t the first time Trump had chosen to single out Cheney, the daughter of the former vice president. He has also called her a “low IQ war hawk,” earning her a spot on the Trump walk of shame alongside three of his vanquished presidential rivals (“Crooked Hillary,” “Crazy Kamala,” and “Birdbrain” Nikki Haley), as well as “Tampon Tim” Walz, “Psycho Joe” Scarborough, and California Governor Gavin “Newscum.”
The second (unscripted) speech of Trump’s first day back in office was longer than the inaugural address, and it included Trump’s cautioning: “I shouldn’t say this.”
Which serves as a warning label for presidential utterances to come. For as the curtain rises on America’s forty-seventh president, the question is: will Trump’s penchant for belligerence and belittling have a deleterious effect on an ambitious “second first term” agenda?
Blue streaks in the White House
Trump isn’t the first president whose words raised eyebrows. A half-century ago, with the release of secretly recorded White House tapes, America discovered that a Quaker-bred president possessed a potty mouth (Richard Nixon’s salty language gave us the editor’s term “expletive deleted”). Then again, Nixon came across as a choirboy compared to his predecessor. Lyndon Johnson’s foul words and lack of physical boundaries led one congressman to this assessment: “I wouldn’t say Johnson was vulgar—he was barnyard.”
Even Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, could have helped whittle down the nation’s debt by installing a swear jar in the Oval Office—Biden reportedly calling Trump “a sick f—” and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an “a—hole.”
Then again, those were Biden’s personal opinions. Whereas Trump seems to have little if any firewall between his inner thoughts and what he offers for public consumption.
Why is this so? It may be as simple as seeing Donald Trump, an unfettered and unfiltered messenger, as a reflection of times he inhabits and a master of a celebrity culture that helped propel him to national office. And note one subculture that Trump adapted to politics: professional wrestling. Before three presidential runs and an eleven-year run on The Apprentice, Trump was a fixture in the world of the then–World Wrestling Federation (now the WWE). He engaged in phony storylines and, on one occasion, pulled off a product crossover when the female wrestler Maria Kanellis appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice (ironically, Trump fired her for engaging in “locker room” talk).
About pro wrestling: the premise is a simple one of “heroes” vs. “heels,” both roles that Trump gleefully plays—adored by MAGA supporters, egging on his detractors (more recently, the “Combatant in Chief” has sat ringside at UFC bouts, the bloody sport of choice for Generation Z.
In its heyday, professional wrestling was a world in which language—nationalist, bombastic—flowed freely and insultingly, with little in the way of boundaries other than what’s censored on television. In other words, not all that different from the Trump approach to campaigning and governing.
Working the Internet, and the phones
If one wants to take the wrestling analogy a step further, Trump the politician is one-half of a “tag team.” His partner: social media.
Yes, Barack Obama once was lauded as America’s “first social-media president” for his embrace of the emerging technology and his “cool dad tweet.” But Trump has used the platforms—X and Truth Social—in ways Obama didn’t. In 2015 and 2016, his constant tweeting rallied his base and stymied Trump’s rivals by dominating daily media narratives.
But once in office and tasked with governing and not campaigning, Trump’s tweeting proved more problematic. The president’s spur-of-the moment observations often came across as mean or petty. Moreover, the brickbats and temper tantrums distracted from a pre-pandemic record that was solid on the economy and foreign policy and a valid argument for a second term.
The good news for Trump: he’s on friendlier terms with some prominent foils, such as Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg. The bad news: Zuckerberg doesn’t have a vote in Congress. However, 535 men and women do. And to the extent that Trump can win them over—if he does so via flattery or flagellation—will determine whether he’s the rare president to enjoy a successful second term.
One early sign that America may be in store for a more realpolitik Trump presidency: the president-elect’s role in helping House Speaker Mike Johnson retain his gavel. Rather than using social media to blast the half-dozen Republican members who initially withheld their support, Trump instead worked the phones—even while golfing—to guarantee a single-ballot victory for Johnson.
LBJ, a master of political persuasion, would have approved.
Rhetoric can’t do it all
That doesn’t mean Trump is immune to old habits. The day before the speaker vote, the president-elect took to his Truth Social platform to say the following about Morgan Ortagus, a State Department spokeswoman in his first term and now a Mideast deputy envoy: “Early on, Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson. These things usually don’t work out, but she has strong Republican support, and I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for them. Let’s see what happens.”
Trump was referring to Republican senators, who total fifty-three in all, giving him a cushion on more contentious votes, beginning with his cabinet picks. One sign that GOP senators will toe the Trump line, lest they fear the threat of a MAGA-style primary challenger: Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, who’s up for re-election in 2026, throwing her support behind defense secretary-designate Pete Hegseth.
That said, it’s the House of Representatives, where Republicans enjoy the narrowest majority in a century, that’s more of a problem for the Trump agenda. More complicated pieces of legislation—a “mega” MAGA bill, passing budgets, dealing with debt ceilings—will require presidential coaxing. A historic parallel: in late 1993, Bill Clinton and Al Gore persuading reluctant congressional Democrats to go along with the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Such lobbying and arm-twisting campaigns require good staffing and organization. That’s why one key to Trump’s political future is the success or failure of his chief of staff, Susie Wiles. The daughter of the late sports broadcaster Pat Summerall, Wiles is credited with running a surprisingly disciplined Trump presidential campaign in 2024 and has vowed to limit staffers’ access to the Oval Office to maintain message discipline and minimize friction within the West Wing and its competing egos. In the previous and more freewheeling Trump presidency, the first chief of staff lasted a mere six months.
But does bringing calm and order to the Trump White House also necessitate putting the president on a restricted social-media diet—at least, on those occasions when he’s fueled more by emotion than intellect?
Which raises yet another question: is it best for this president’s handlers to “let Trump be Trump,” even if this includes social media posts better left unsent?
It’s not the first time a celebrity politician has faced such a dilemma.
Back in 2003, California voters installed Arnold Schwarzenegger as their governor—Arnold, like Trump, running on a long list of policy gripes (the state’s exorbitant “car tax,” reforming workers’ compensation, lack of government transparency). And, like Trump, Arnold’s campaign relied on clever stagecraft (a rally at the State Capitol during which the candidate played an air guitar and waved a broom to “sweep out the special interests”) and signature one-liners (“I’ll be back”).
But once in office, Schwarzenegger learned that his shtick didn’t guarantee success. A year into office, he failed to get Republican legislators elected; in a 2005 special election, an ambitious reform agenda was uniformly rejected.
Following that latter setback, a “new” Arnold emerged—a governor more concerned about the human condition (climate change) and more willing to cut deals with Democratic legislators he’d earlier dismissed as “girlie men.”
Could a similar fate await Trump? Don’t bet on it. Arnold faced re-election the same year of his “conversion”; a term-limited Trump, whose party currently controls the levers of the federal government, can’t run again.
Plus, the scripts are different. In the first decade of this century, Arnold Schwarzenegger sought the political mainstream. That was after a movie career in which he earned a fortune by swimming in the cinematic mainstream, portraying variations of the same action hero, with the occasional light comedy.
In 2006 and seeking a second term in a decidedly blue state amid the backdrop of a bad year for Republicans nationally, Schwarzenegger saw that his political survival entailed terminating the “Terminator” persona.
A man of the times
In 2025, one could argue that Trump occupies both the political mainstream and the cultural mainstream. He won last year’s popular vote; per Gallup, his party continues to hold an edge in political affiliation.
And what is America’s cultural mainstream these days? Social media, of course— occasionally informative, but often a breeding ground for misinformation, conspiracy theories, and rage. And, at times, unnecessary vulgarity.
Many of the celebrities we venerate behave the same way. If it’s not the baseball great David Ortiz spewing profanities during a celebratory moment for the good people of Boston (“this is our f—ing city”), it’s almost any f-bombing podcast featuring Taylor Swift’s boyfriend and his brother.
Disgruntled progressives will say that in Trump, so-called “low information” voters get the vulgarian they deserve. But in the America of 2025, perhaps Trump and his unfiltered, unapologetic approach to politics is what Americans want: a president more focused on the economy, a porous border, institutional decay, and America’s standing in the world than a leader of the Free World living in fear of triggered emotions and microaggressions.
A study in civility and tempered words the forty-seventh presidency likely won’t be. Then again, voters seem to have known that when they gave Donald Trump a new lease on his political life.
A small-screen nation addicted to social media and coupled with a president who can’t stay off his device? Sounds like a four-year marriage of convenience.
