Performing Presidents: The Star Power of Reagan, Trump, and Zelensky

Unpacking the phenomenon of celebrity presidents, this book explores how theatrical techniques function as expedient yet potentially dangerous tools in contemporary politics.

What can be done once politics is seen only as performance, and hybrid wars or nuclear annihilation are perceived to be just another spectacle?

By limiting its scope to former actors and showbusiness figures, this book centers on the prominent 20th- and 21st-century populist leaders Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and Volodymyr Zelensky. It explores how such figures transitioned from theatrical engagements to the presidency, including how their political life was reframed as a theatrical event.

This book reveals the various ways these presidents approached political performance and incorporated entertainment elements into it in order to shift the norms of political representation and disrupt communication modes. It further explores how these populist figures personalized and fictionalized their presidential role by means of storytelling and the bodily enactment of their myth.

In contrast to the methodology of TV entertainment used in Reagan’s era, modern technology has permitted Trump and Zelensky to embrace an innovative ’distributed aesthetics’ approach. Owing to its virtual nature, this technique transcends spatial and temporal limitations, while simultaneously rendering celebrity presence ubiquitous and exaggerating the illusion of intimacy between ruler and populace.

Maria Berlova is an independent scholar based in Washington, DC, USA.