If Shakespeare were alive today, he would scrap Macbeth and write The Real Housewives of Mar-a-Lago. Because Donald J. Trump, 47th President of the United States—and apparently the first President of Reality TV—did not govern the country as a statesman, oh no. He governed as though America were a never-ending episode of The Apprentice, sprinkled with WWE theatrics, Fox News monologues, and the occasional all-caps meltdown on Truth Social at 3:12am.
Trump didn’t view the U.S. Constitution as a guiding document. He viewed it as a stubborn script that needed better ratings.
📺 Season One: “You’re Fired!” Foreign Policy
Traditional presidents hold summits, negotiate treaties, and occasionally win Nobel Prizes. Trump approached diplomacy like a crossover episode of Celebrity Deathmatch.
North Korea: He first threatened nuclear fire and fury, then slid into Kim Jong-un’s DMs like a teenager flirting on Snapchat. “We fell in love,” he declared. Somewhere, the ghost of Churchill choked on his cigar.
NATO: He treated America’s oldest allies like unpaid interns, demanding they “pay up” or face eviction.
The Middle East: Peace wasn’t the mission; the goal was a photo-op with gold-leaf captions.
Propose attacking Nigeria to save Christians.
Geopolitics became less “war and peace” and more “Love Island with missiles”.
🧵 X: The Official White House Communications Office
Abraham Lincoln used the Gettysburg Address. Franklin Roosevelt used fireside chats. Trump used the cursed blue bird platform like it was an IV drip feeding his soul.
For four years, X was:
✅ Policy roll-out
✅ Staff firing bulletin
✅ International diplomacy platform
✅ Presidential diary
❌ Safe for anyone with a blood pressure condition
His tweets were like accidental comedy: you knew you shouldn’t laugh, but you did—often in disbelief, sometimes in fear, always with popcorn.
🎞️ The Presidency as a Show, America as the Studio Audience
Every day under Trump came with:
A teaser trailer
A cliffhanger
A cast of supporting characters who were fired, rehired, pardoned or indicted faster than cast members in Big Brother
Sean Spicer hid in bushes. Rudy Giuliani leaked hair dye. Dr. Fauci aged 40 years in 14 months. It was The West Wing, but written by someone who binged eight Red Bulls and fell asleep on the keyboard.
Trump wasn’t governing, he was producing content.
And the American public? Unpaid extras with front-row seats.
🤡 Clickbait Governance: Headlines Over Substance
Trump’s guiding principle seemed to be:
“Why solve a problem when you can trend instead?”
Instead of strategy documents, there were catchphrases:
Build the Wall
Witch Hunt
Fake News
Stop the Count
Every issue—pandemics, immigration, taxes, wildfires—was less about policy and more about brand messaging. The goal wasn’t progress, it was virality.
🏛️ Congress? More Like Ratings Competition
Congress wasn’t a co-equal branch of government; it was a rival show stealing his audience share. When the Speaker of the House got too many headlines, Trump escalated the drama like a jealous influencer seeking more “likes”.
If the Founding Fathers had known this was coming, they would have added a constitutional amendment:
“Thou shalt not govern as a YouTuber.”
📣 The Legacy: A Nation with Whiplash and a Subscription
After Trump, America’s political culture now requires:
A trailer
A theme song
A scandal per episode
A villain per week
The question is no longer “What are the policies?”
It’s “When does the next season drop?”
Trump leaves politics addicted to the adrenaline of outrage. Serious governance has to compete with memes, gifs, podcast rants, and TikTok pundits diagnosing democracy like medical interns who barely passed anatomy.
🎤 Final Episode Teaser
Like every soap villain, Trump refuses to leave the storyline.
There are rumours of a reboot—Trump 3: The Sequel Nobody Asked For but X Will Milk for Content.
Whether you love him, loathe him, or observe him for comedic material like a rare species of flamingo in the Sahara, one thing is certain:
Trump makes democracy binge-watchable… but leaves America exhausted, over-stimulated, and in desperate need of a detox from all-caps governance.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 