A listing of the American presidents who were great orators would surely include such prominent wordsmiths as Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The current resident of the White House, Donald Trump, hardly seems to belong in the company of those presidents, who displayed soaring rhetoric and dazzled the nation.
It might, however, be time to rethink the exclusion of Trump.
Of course, he has little of the charisma of JFK or the polish of Reagan. President Trump’s opponents consider his bold pronouncements to be unrefined, undiplomatic and clumsy. But he has succeeded in getting his Trumpian messages into the fabric of America. Trump might lack traditional oratorical style, but it is getting harder to question his functionality.
Trump has expanded his rhetorical field way beyond giving formal speeches standing behind a podium. His messaging turf includes social media, marathon rallies and impromptu give-and-take gaggles with reporters. He worked the drive-up window at McDonalds during last year’s election and handed out burgers recently to National Guardsmen and police in Washington. Basically, Trump floods the public sphere with messages and images. And his massive use of social media allows him to communicate directly to America without establishment media filters.
Even in the four years he was out of the White House, Trump maintained visibility and a voice on the national stage. Of course, the Democratic Party helped Trump stay in the public consciousness with multiple lawsuits and random outbursts about fascism. But throughout American history, virtually every other president who left the White House essentially inhabited a soundproof room, never to be relevant again. Not so for Trump, who was determined not to follow in the quiet footsteps of Gerald Ford, LBJ or George W.
Trump’s ability to continually assert himself into the national discussion should come as no surprise. His entire life has been devoted to branding in one fashion or another, stamping his name and impression on towering buildings and casinos and golf courses and prime-time television reality shows.
The nation will likely never hear Trump utter a profound phrase such as JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you,” or FDR’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Trump can’t gracefully inspire as Reagan did with his “boys of Pointe du Hoc” speech at Normandy. But his bold proclamations such as “total obliteration” with regard to the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities or his “big beautiful bill” generate a certain clout that sink into the country’s dialogue.
Trump also exercises the power of catch phrases. Going back to “You’re fired!” during “The Apprentice” to today’s use of “radical left lunatic” and “low IQ individual” in disparaging whatever political foe is on his radar at the moment, Trump leaves no doubt about his stance. His nicknaming of presidential opponents “Crooked Hillary” and “Crazy Kamala” became standard fare at rallies and stamped them with a discourteous label that nonetheless stuck. Trump recognizes there is great power in naming things and he likes to flex that power, including even to bodies of water, such as his newly assigned Gulf of America.
Trump floods the rhetorical zone, grabbing and maintaining the public’s attention with frequent social media posts the media can’t wait to report and analyze. He is certainly the most accessible president for the news media in American history, engaging reporters almost daily in impromptu Q&As in the Oval Office, outside his Marine helicopter and during flights on Air Force One. Trump is on pace to have 352 exchanges with reporters in his first year back in office, almost three times the rate of the next gabbiest president, Bill Clinton.
His remarks are mostly unscripted, off the cuff and sometimes cringeworthy, but the comments are genuinely his voice. Unlike many politicians, Trump’s remarks are straight from the hip, with no ghostwriting or prefab PR influence. The president’s in-your-face rhetoric is a scorched earth approach, to be sure, and it does disrupt political decency, but it is a sort of surrogate speech for his MAGA supporters for whom subtlety is not a virtue.
Trump’s brawling use of rhetorical levers often drives people crazy. And it might be a reach to suggest there is a method to his messaging madness. But his approach is uniquely his and it works for him. No other president in American history has conducted public communication like Trump and it is unlikely any future president could duplicate his approach (which might be a good thing).
Whether his style is considered prowess or random occurrence, it would be impossible to imitate. Even Trump’s frequent sign-off on social media has caught attention as he wraps up a rant with, “Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Yep, that’s authentic Trump.
Jeffrey McCall is a professor of communication at DePauw University.
