A Small Man in a Large Chair

Why the Trump Era Demands a Reckoning With Presidential Character

The focus on presidential character during the Trump era is no accident. In fact, it may be the most consequential question of our political age. Trump’s behavior has forced Americans to reexamine what the presidency reveals, rather than what it builds. The office does not mold a man into greatness. It magnifies what is already there. And in Trump, we saw not the best of American potential, but a deeply flawed, narcissistic, and morally compromised figure using the highest office for personal gain and petty vengeance.

Unlike past leaders, whose flaws were often tempered by moments of moral clarity or visionary public service, Trump’s legacy is one of relentless self-interest. The historical contrast is striking. Abraham Lincoln, George H. W. Bush, even Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, with all their respective contradictions, displayed an understanding of the weight of the presidency. They believed the role demanded something higher than the self. For Trump, the presidency was never about the country. It was always about him.

A spate of recent books about presidential character, Our Ancient Faith by Allen Guelzo, Character Matters by Jean Becker, and Make Your Mark by Mark Updegrove, does not take Trump head on. But they don’t need to. The contrast is implied in every chapter. Each book focuses on leaders whose decency, vision, or historical humility carried the nation forward in some way. They are, together, a mirror reflecting everything Trump is not.

And the public, despite years of media saturation, continues to wrestle with how to categorize Trump. His opponents have long been clear: he is a threat to democracy, to decency, and to the idea of shared truth. His supporters, by contrast, have either excused or embraced his worst behaviors as a form of righteous disruption. That divide, over what character means in public life, is tearing the country apart.

What past presidents had, even when they failed, was a grounding in something beyond themselves. Lincoln wore his humility plainly, reminding the nation he had once been a hired laborer. George H. W. Bush wrote heartfelt letters about civility and public trust. Barack Obama spoke of being a relay swimmer in the currents of history, not the source of those currents. These reflections reveal a shared understanding that leadership is not domination. It is stewardship.

Trump has never operated within that framework. His presidency was marked by deceit, cruelty, and a fundamental disregard for institutional norms. He celebrated dictators, attacked democratic allies, and regularly used the power of the office to enrich himself and punish his enemies. These are not just policy choices. They are revelations of character, or its absence.

And now, we confront a more disturbing facet of that absence: Trump's long and troubling connection to Jeffrey Epstein. It is not just the well-documented photographs, the shared social circles, or the quotes about Epstein "liking them young." The newest revelations are more grotesque. A letter reportedly penned by Trump in 2003 and featured in a leather-bound album given to Epstein for his 50th birthday has surfaced. The letter was vulgar and deeply inappropriate, included in a book organized by Ghislaine Maxwell. It contained a fictional dialogue between Trump and Epstein, and was overlaid with the drawing of a naked woman. Trump's signature was placed suggestively under the image.

This is more than poor taste. It reveals a comfort with a social circle steeped in exploitation and misogyny. Rather than distancing himself from Epstein, Trump appeared to lean into the persona of playful perversion, publicly aligning with a man now infamous for sex trafficking and abuse. This is not guilt by association. This is character by expression. In willingly participating in Epstein's birthday album, Trump showed us who he was. He found no moral discomfort in the company of predators. He saw it as another stage on which to perform.

That performance, crude and self-serving, is consistent with everything we saw during his presidency. From mocking disabled reporters to separating children from their parents at the border to bragging about sexual assault, Trump made cruelty a centerpiece of his brand. He shattered the pretense of dignity and declared open season on any sense of moral expectation. And far too many Americans cheered him for it.

The idea that the presidency reveals rather than creates character was articulated by both Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. They understood that the stress, scrutiny, and scale of the office would lay bare the inner workings of a man. This is why presidential character matters. It becomes national character. When the public watches a leader repeatedly lie, cheat, and bully without consequence, the bar for public decency lowers for everyone.

Even presidents with serious flaws, like Lyndon Johnson, are remembered for their higher aspirations. Johnson was crude, arrogant, and sometimes racist in private. But he used the power of the presidency to pass the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and a sweeping anti-poverty agenda. His ambitions lifted others, even when his language did not. Johnson saw the presidency as a tool to shape a better America, not to settle scores.

Mark Updegrove points out that sometimes we don't need greatness, we just need goodness. Gerald Ford, in his quiet steadiness, helped stabilize the nation after Watergate. He brought decency back to the Oval Office. In a moment of deep political cynicism, he reminded Americans that character could still matter.

That possibility, of a good president in hard times, is what Trump threatens most. Not only does he lack greatness or goodness, but he makes a mockery of those values. He calls the press the enemy of the people. He embraces foreign strongmen. He encourages violence. He lies so routinely that even fact-checkers gave up keeping score. And he does all this with impunity because a significant portion of the country has decided that character is irrelevant.

But character is not irrelevant. It is foundational. Without it, power becomes abuse, and governance becomes spectacle. Trump has shown us what happens when the office of the presidency is reduced to a stage for grievance, vanity, and vendetta. He has shown us that not every man is made bigger by the White House. Some are simply exposed.

And what they expose, in turn, shapes the nation. Trump's admiration for Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban is not a foreign policy quirk. It is a window into his authoritarian aspirations. His refusal to concede the 2020 election, his incitement of the January 6 insurrection, and his ongoing campaign to delegitimize democratic institutions are not isolated incidents. They are the product of a worldview devoid of moral restraint.

To ask whether Trump's vision will be vindicated by future presidents is to ask whether America will remain a democracy in any meaningful sense. That is not hyperbole. It is the logical end of a character that values only power and loyalty to the self. Trump’s approach to governance is transactional, tribal, and toxic. And the longer we excuse it, the harder it becomes to restore what was lost.

This is why the character question cannot be dismissed as a partisan complaint. It is a national imperative. Presidents set the moral tone for the country. They influence how citizens see each other, how children view leadership, and how history judges our moment. If Trump’s character becomes the new norm, then we have fundamentally redefined what it means to lead.

The presidency is not just a job. It is a symbol. When Trump defiles it with behavior more fitting of tabloid scandal than public office, the damage is not only to the present. It is to the long memory of the Republic. His presence in the White House was not just controversial. It was corrosive.

Trump’s defenders will say this is old news. That we should move on. But there is no moving on from the degradation of national character without first naming it and rejecting it. We cannot afford to normalize what should never have been acceptable. The integrity of democracy depends on shared values, and Trump has spent a decade attacking them.

It is not enough to catalog his flaws. It is time to reckon with what they mean. America must decide whether the office of the presidency will continue to reveal the best in us, or whether we will accept a future where the worst among us is handed the most powerful seat in the land.

Donald Trump is not merely a man with flaws. He is a man whose flaws define his leadership. In the age of Trump, the character question is not abstract. It is urgent. And our answer to it will shape the soul of the nation.

We have seen what happens when a small man sits in a large chair. The question now is whether we will ever demand better again.

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