Trump's Spectacle of Governing
Donald Trump's return to the presidency has reaffirmed his mastery of what might be called performative governance—the art of making governing itself into a continuous spectacle of visible action. Unlike his predecessor Joe Biden, whose approach emphasized the administrative substance of governance often conducted away from cameras and press events, Trump has transformed the daily signing of executive orders into televised events that project an image of relentless activity and decisive leadership. This distinction reveals a fundamental tension in modern democratic politics between what Walter Bagehot described in 1867 as the "dignified" and "efficient" parts of the constitution—between the theatrical elements of power that inspire public allegiance and the mechanical operations of government that actually produce policy outcomes.1
Trump's governance style appears to prioritize the dignified over the efficient, understanding intuitively what Marshall McLuhan articulated in the 1960s: that in the television age, the medium through which political action is communicated may matter more than the substantive content of that action.2 Where Biden often appeared to govern through the traditional bureaucratic channels of policy development and interagency coordination—processes that are inherently invisible to the public and difficult to dramatize—Trump stages governance as a series of performative moments designed for visual media consumption. The daily executive order signing ceremony, often featuring oversized documents held up for cameras, represents not merely a policy decision but a carefully choreographed demonstration of presidential authority and activity.
From Television Producer to Political Performer
Trump's background as a television personality, most notably through his years hosting "The Apprentice," provided him with an education in the grammar of televisual communication that proved more politically valuable than traditional policy expertise. His understanding that television demands simplification, personalization, conflict, and visual drama shaped his approach to the presidency itself. Where conventional politicians might view governance as the complex work of negotiating legislation, managing bureaucracies, and coordinating executive agencies, Trump appears to conceive of the presidency primarily as a performance space where visible actions communicate strength, decisiveness, and constant motion to a viewing audience.
This approach represents a continuation and intensification of what political scientists have termed the "permanent campaign"—the phenomenon, particularly pronounced since the 1980s, in which governing and campaigning have become increasingly indistinguishable.3 However, Trump's innovation extends beyond simply continuing to campaign while in office; he has effectively erased any distinction between governing and performing, understanding that in the current media environment, being seen to govern may be politically more valuable than the traditional work of governing itself. The executive order becomes less a tool of policy implementation and more a prop in an ongoing political theater, valuable primarily for its visual and symbolic properties rather than its administrative effects.
The Society of the Spectacle and Postmodern Politics
Guy Debord's 1967 work "The Society of the Spectacle" provides a theoretical framework for understanding Trump's approach to presidential performance.4 Debord argued that in advanced capitalist societies, authentic social life had been replaced by its representation—that lived reality had been displaced by accumulated spectacles mediated through images. In this formulation, the spectacle is not simply a collection of images but rather "a social relation among people, mediated by images." Applied to contemporary politics, this suggests that Trump has understood—perhaps more clearly than any recent political figure—that political power in the television and social media age is constituted not through the hidden work of policy formation but through the constant production and circulation of images that communicate authority, activity, and control.
The postmodern dimensions of Trump's political style extend beyond mere performativity into the realm of what Jean Baudrillard might have recognized as "hyperreality"—a condition in which representations of reality become more "real" than the underlying reality they purport to represent. Trump's daily executive order signings function less as substantive policy interventions and more as simulations of decisive governing, where the image of action may satisfy public desire for strong leadership independent of whether those actions produce meaningful policy changes. This represents a distinctly postmodern political condition in which the distinction between governing and appearing to govern collapses, and in which the semiotics of power become potentially more important than its traditional exercise.
McLuhan's Medium and the Televisual Presidency
Marshall McLuhan's famous assertion that "the medium is the message" takes on particular salience when analyzing Trump's governing style.5 McLuhan argued that the characteristics of a communication medium shape and control the scale and form of human association and action, often more powerfully than the ostensible content being communicated. In the context of the Trump presidency, this suggests that the television camera's presence transforms the very nature of executive action. An executive order signed privately in the Oval Office and announced through a press release operates differently—both politically and semiotically—than the same order signed in a ceremony designed for television coverage, complete with visual displays of the signed document and often remarks to assembled cameras.
Trump's intuitive grasp of television grammar—developed through decades in the medium before entering politics—allows him to understand that television demands constant novelty, action, and visual interest. The daily signing ceremony satisfies television's perpetual hunger for "events" while simultaneously creating a narrative of ceaseless presidential activity. This stands in stark contrast to Biden's approach, which often seemed premised on pre-television assumptions about how political leadership communicates itself—through policy substance, institutional respect, and the measured deliberation of experienced governance. Biden's experience in politics predated the full mediatization of American political life, and his governing style often reflected an older model in which policy development occurred largely outside public view and was communicated primarily through traditional press conferences and written statements.
Bagehot's Constitution in the Age of Performance
Walter Bagehot's distinction between the "dignified" and "efficient" parts of the constitution—between the theatrical elements that inspire loyalty and the mechanical operations that accomplish actual work—was developed to explain the British constitutional monarchy in the Victorian era, but it provides unexpected insight into contemporary American presidential politics.6 Bagehot argued that the "dignified" parts of the constitution, particularly the monarchy, served to "excite and preserve the reverence of the population" while the "efficient" parts, the Cabinet and Parliament, actually wielded power and made policy. In the American presidency, these two functions are not separated institutionally but must be performed by the same office, creating an inherent tension between the ceremonial and administrative roles of the president.
Trump's presidency appears to represent an extreme privileging of the dignified over the efficient, understanding that in a media-saturated democracy, the performance of authority may generate more political support than the exercise of competent administration. His daily executive order signings can be understood as pure exercises in the dignified function—they are theatrical demonstrations of presidential power that may or may not translate into effective policy implementation through the administrative state. This represents an inversion of how most recent presidents have approached the office, where the dignified functions (ceremonial appearances, symbolic gestures) were understood as necessary but secondary to the efficient work of policy development and administrative management.
The Contrast with Administrative Governance
The contrast between Trump's performative approach and Biden's more traditional administrative style illuminates competing visions of what presidential leadership means in contemporary democracy. Biden's presidency, particularly in its initial years, appeared to operate on the assumption that competent policy development and effective bureaucratic management would generate political support by producing tangible improvements in citizens' lives. This reflects what might be called a substantivist theory of political legitimacy, in which governments earn support through effective problem-solving and administrative competence. Biden's background as a longtime senator—an institution where much important work occurs in committees and negotiations outside public view—likely reinforced this orientation toward the invisible mechanics of governing.
Trump's approach, conversely, appears premised on what might be termed a presentational theory of political legitimacy, in which governments earn support by successfully projecting images of strength, activity, and decisive leadership, relatively independent of the administrative outcomes those actions produce. This is not to suggest that Trump's executive orders have no policy content or administrative effect, but rather that their primary political function appears to be the creation of a spectacle of governing—a continuous stream of visible presidential actions that communicate control and activity to a public audience. In this model, the aesthetic qualities of governance—its visual drama, its theatrical staging, its capacity to generate media attention—may be as important as its substantive qualities in generating political support.
The Permanent Campaign and Mediatized Governance
The concept of the "permanent campaign," which emerged in political science literature in the 1980s and 1990s, described the increasing interpenetration of governing and campaigning in American politics.7 As public opinion polling, focus groups, and political consultants became central to governance, presidents began to view policy decisions increasingly through the lens of their political effects, and campaign-style communication strategies extended throughout the governing period rather than being confined to election seasons. However, what Trump has accomplished appears to represent an evolution beyond the permanent campaign toward what might be termed permanent performance—a governing style in which nearly every action is conceived and staged primarily for its properties as political theater rather than for its administrative effects.
This permanent performance model reflects several developments in the American political and media environment. The fragmentation of media audiences and the rise of partisan news channels mean that presidents can increasingly speak to their political base rather than attempting to build broad coalitions. The transformation of news into a 24-hour cycle demanding constant fresh content creates incentives for politicians to stage continuous "events" that generate media coverage. Social media platforms reward conflict, drama, and simplified narratives over complexity and nuance. In this environment, Trump's strategy of daily executive order signings represents a rational adaptation to the current media ecosystem—it provides a reliable stream of "news" that satisfies television's and social media's hunger for content while allowing the president to appear constantly active and in command.
Postmodern Leadership and the Collapse of Distinctions
The postmodern character of Trump's governing style extends beyond mere performance into territory that theorists like Jean-François Lyotard might have recognized as characteristic of the postmodern condition—a collapse of traditional distinctions and categories.8 The boundary between reality and representation, between substance and image, between governing and campaigning, all become increasingly porous and unstable. In traditional conceptions of democratic governance, there existed a clear (if perhaps always somewhat idealized) distinction between the public performance of politics and the backstage work of policy development and administrative management. Campaign rhetoric was understood as distinct from governing reality, and voters expected that once in office, political leaders would shift from the performance modes of campaigning to the substantive work of governance.
Trump's approach effectively dissolves these distinctions, treating governance itself as an ongoing performance in which the boundaries between different modes of political action become increasingly difficult to maintain. An executive order serves simultaneously as policy instrument, campaign prop, media event, and symbolic gesture, with these functions no longer clearly separable. This collapse of traditional categorical distinctions represents a fundamentally postmodern political condition, in which the older modernist assumptions about substance versus appearance, reality versus representation, no longer hold their organizing power.
The Spectacle's Political Efficacy
The crucial political question raised by Trump's performative governance is whether this approach represents merely a departure from traditional norms or whether it reflects a deeper structural transformation in how democratic legitimacy is generated and maintained in contemporary media environments. Trump's electoral success—both in his initial 2016 victory and his 2024 return to the presidency—suggests that for a significant portion of the American electorate, the spectacle of decisive action may indeed be as politically satisfying as the substance of effective administration. This possibility challenges comfortable assumptions that voters necessarily reward competent governance and punish theatrical performance, suggesting instead that in a mediatized democracy, the capacity to generate compelling political theater may be as important a leadership quality as policy expertise or administrative competence.
However, the long-term sustainability and consequences of governance-as-performance remain uncertain. While the spectacle of daily executive order signings may satisfy public demand for visible presidential action in the short term, the question remains whether this approach can produce the substantive policy outcomes that ultimately determine presidential success and historical legacy. There is a potential gap between the performance of governing and the administrative reality of implementing complex policies through large bureaucracies, and it remains to be seen whether Trump's second term will navigate this gap more successfully than his first, or whether the prioritization of performance over administration will ultimately produce governance failures that even the most compelling political theater cannot overcome.
Conclusion: The Future of Democratic Performance
Trump's mastery of performative politics and his transformation of governance into a continuous spectacle represents a significant evolution in American presidential leadership, one that reflects deeper transformations in media, culture, and the nature of political communication in advanced democracies. His approach synthesizes insights that might have been drawn from Bagehot's analysis of constitutional dignity, McLuhan's understanding of television as a medium, Debord's critique of spectacular society, and postmodern skepticism about the stability of traditional distinctions between substance and appearance. Whether this represents a durable transformation in how democratic leadership operates or a temporary adaptation to specific media environments remains an open question, but it seems clear that Trump has identified and exploited fundamental changes in how political authority is constituted and communicated in contemporary democracies.
The contrast with Biden's more traditional administrative approach highlights a fundamental tension in democratic governance between the ceremonial and administrative, the visible and invisible, the theatrical and substantive aspects of political leadership. As democracies continue to navigate increasingly complex media environments and more fragmented public spheres, the question of whether effective governance requires privileging performance or administration—or whether some synthesis of these approaches is possible—will likely remain central to debates about political leadership and democratic legitimacy. Trump's second presidency may provide important evidence about the sustainability and consequences of governance conceived primarily as spectacle, though the ultimate judgment on this approach will likely require the long perspective that only historical distance can provide.
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