Not every president after Andrew Jackson invited the public to trash the White House for his inauguration party.
Or teach a parrot to curse. And they definitely didn’t all ask the public to feast on the smelly 1,400-pound wheel of cheddar they kept in the White House Entrance Hall for a year.
But none of the future presidents reverted to the formality of the Founding Fathers¹ who preceded him. I have no idea if America will return to a liberal democracy or become an autocracy. But I feel certain that the way political leaders will talk, act, and dress is forever changed. Trump has demolished the norm of speaking one way to the public and another in a Scorsese film. Formality is now seen as fake. The tension between private life and political life was becoming too great. It’s hard to issue vetted press releases when celebrities post on social media. Suits and ties have started to feel so much like tuxedos that Trump dresses them down with a trucker cap. To many Americans, if you’re speaking so carefully that you’re avoiding cursing, you’re fucking hiding something.  This is how Presidential announcements looked a decade ago, back when the Secret Service told Obama he couldn’t keep his Blackberry phone due to security reasons:
It’s so nerdy! Look at all those words. And you couldn’t even ask ChatGPT to read it back then. I think it’s about how words are important. This is how the White House releases information now:
California Governor/2028 Presidential Candidate Gavin Newsom has started to mock Trump’s style. And while I greatly appreciate him pointing out how dumb it is, I also know that mockery can be the first step toward embracing something. Especially when it’s working. As these apparently are. Which I know because a) he keeps doing them, and b) I have nearly no idea what they mean.
The gulf in formality between a democratic leader and his citizens shouldn’t be huge. The president shouldn’t use Latin, seal documents in wax, curtsy, or do whatever William McKinley was doing with his tie here:
But just as we don’t speak the same way to our grandmothers as to our friends, politicians should speak formally in public. Leaders who curse in their hoodies while eating Doritos cannot ask us to be our better selves. In an age where institutions are being torn down by the power of the individual, our leaders must represent more than themselves. They should speak and dress more formally than I do at home. They should make an effort. And expect that, at least when thinking about the fate of our country, we should too. 1 And one son of a founding father., John Quincy Adams. But he was pretty uptight. Other than swimming naked every day in the Potomac. Thank you for paying to read my column. Wait: This is for the people who didn’t pay? Then I owe you nothing. You are the ones contributing to the end of my career. If you want to pay an exorbitant amount of money to get one extra post a month – which often won’t even be that good – upgrade to a paid subscription here:
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Monday, August 25, 2025
America Is Not Going Back
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