If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if the host of The Apprentice was handed the nuclear codes … again … congratulations. You’re living it. It’s June 20, 2025, and Donald Trump, a man best known for firing D-list celebrities on reality TV and making cameos in low-effort comedies, is once more the President of the United States.

Despite the lawsuits, indictments, and that little hiccup called an attempted coup, Trump somehow clawed his way back into the White House in 2024. And no, he hasn’t changed. He didn’t “pivot.” If anything, he’s doubled down. His second term is shaping up to be a rerun of his first one … only with worse lighting and fewer people pretending it’s fine.

Because make no mistake: Trump doesn’t run an administration. He directs a show. And the American people? We’re just the audience. Or maybe the extras. Certainly not the writers.

Trump’s favorite production phrase is still going strong: “two weeks.”

As in: new tariffs coming in two weeks. A major immigration plan? Two weeks. A cure for inflation? It’s in post-production. According to multiple analyses, Trump used “two weeks” as a stall tactic at least 80 times during his first term. That tradition has resumed in full force.

This isn’t just lazy messaging; it’s deliberate. It’s how a reality-TV mind strings people along. In television, two weeks is the cliffhanger window. Trump has imported that mechanic straight into governance.

Melania Trump once saved Bill Barr’s job by calling him “right out of central casting.” Trump kept him not for competence but because he looked the part.

Fast-forward to 2025, and the casting couch is still warm. Trump’s second-term hires look more like extras from Newsmax than qualified public servants. Former influencers, failed gubernatorial candidates, podcast trolls … they all make up the current supporting cast. According to NPR, he brought at least 19 Fox News alumni into his first term. Now he’s reaching deeper into the digital basement for talent.

This isn’t an administration. It’s a cast list. Competence is optional. Camera presence is not

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Trump never stopped measuring success in television terms. GDP? Who cares. NATO policy? Boring. The real indicator of presidential greatness, according to Trump, is audience size.

Analyses show he mentioned ratings, viewership, or crowd size over 500 times during his first term. Now, he’s back to bragging about how many people watched his State of the Union or retweeting clips of himself with added applause tracks.

He’s still treating America like a struggling show that just needs better promo.

Remember the Bible photo-op in June 2020? That bit of cosplay where peaceful protesters were tear-gassed so Trump could do a weird stiff-armed flex with a Bible outside St. John’s Church? That wasn’t a one-time event. It was a pilot episode for his governing style.

As documented in multiple reports, Trump has always used violent imagery and military theatrics to convey power. His second term is no different. He’s leaned even harder into dramatic optics: armored vehicles at border crossings, staged ICE raids, National Guard deployments meant more for camera crews than public safety.

These moments are scripted for maximum effect. This isn’t leadership. It’s production design.

Worse still, Trump has openly admired the violent suppression of protests by authoritarian regimes. In a resurfaced interview, he praised the Chinese government’s brutal crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, saying, “they put it down with strength” and that “they showed power.” In the Trump Show, state violence isn’t a tragedy. It’s good television.

Promises abound in the Trumpverse. Infrastructure. Health care. Peace deals. Jobs. But as tracking sites have documented, few of these grand proclamations ever materialize.

We’re now 8 years into Trump’s presidential tenure (with a Biden season break in the middle), and still nothing resembling a cohesive policy framework has emerged. It’s all been trailers. Teasers. Coming attractions. There is no third act.

The damage isn’t confined to our borders. Trump’s showmanship-first approach has gone global. Authoritarian copycats have adopted the model: control media, stage the spectacle, ignore the script.

The result? A world where optics trump truth, where leaders fake strength and suppress dissent with the confidence of a man who once sold steaks and mail-order degrees. The U.S. used to export democratic ideals. Now we export show business for strongmen.

Trump’s return to office in 2025 wasn’t just a sequel. It was a reboot. One with fewer constraints, a more fanatical base, and a willingness to sideline traditional checks and balances.

His critics are being cast as villains. The press is the enemy again. The FBI, CIA, and Justice Department are being purged and recast. He’s not even pretending anymore. He doesn’t want to be president. He wants to be the showrunner.

Donald Trump is running America like a long-running franchise that refuses to end. Like a bad cable series, he keeps getting renewed by an audience that confuses familiarity with quality.

But this isn’t fiction. It’s not a set. And there are no outtakes.

If we keep treating him like a celebrity and not a man wielding real, dangerous power, we’ll be stuck in reruns of decline and dysfunction.

Because when you elect a reality show host to the most powerful office in the world … twice … you don’t get a leader. You get a spectacle.

And we all pay for the production budget

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