Amidst a presidential inauguration, the former presidents’ club had a historic shakeup in the new year. On January 9, the late Jimmy Carter, who set the record for the longest post-presidency in history, had a state funeral in Washington. Every living commander-in-chief attended. Eleven days later, the group assembled again for the inauguration. That day, Joe Biden became the newest, and oldest, member of the world’s most exclusive fraternity. But the climax was when President Donald Trump took the oath of office and was a former no more.
For those looking for a historical precedent for Trump’s second term, the obvious parallel is the comeback of President Grover Cleveland. Cleveland rose from mayor of Buffalo to commander in chief in three years. He’s the only other former president to serve two non-consecutive terms, from 1885 until 1889, and again from 1893 until 1897.
It’s an easy comparison to make. Beyond the shared interruption to their tenures in the White House, both Trump and Cleveland are New Yorkers. Both took on their parties’ establishments and won, building new political coalitions in the process. In their time, both of their parties disputed election results, the Democrats in 1876 and the Republicans in 2020. Neither man ever won the majority of the popular vote, though Trump won the plurality in 2024.
Both married women who were popular icons in their day – Cleveland entered office a bachelor, only to wed the beautiful Francis Folsom, age 21, shortly after her college graduation, and her likeness adorned products and advertisements throughout the country. Both returned to Washington pledging to clean up the town, be it ‘draining the swamp’ or, for Cleveland, literally tidying up the White House. When he and Francis flipped on the newly installed light switches in the Executive Mansion, they found that Benjamin Harrison had left it in a state of disrepair, with cobwebs, roaches and rats all around.
But such comparisons only go so far. Where Cleveland was understated, Trump’s personality, from reality television to business to social media to the White House, is larger than life. Cleveland grew up the son of a poor rural preacher; Trump was a successful businessman in New York City. The Democratic Party moved away from Cleveland when it nominated the populist William Jennings Bryan, for whom Cleveland didn’t even vote. Trump has reshaped the Republican Party; his endorsement is coveted.
And whereas Cleveland hadn’t initially planned on mounting a comeback – that was always Francis’s idea – shortly after he left office the first time, then-former president Trump clearly intended to run for his old office again, announced his third bid for the White House in 2022, was the clear GOP frontrunner from the beginning, and campaigned vigorously.
Perhaps most importantly, Trump doesn’t think he’s the second coming of Cleveland’s second coming. Instead, he compares himself to Cleveland’s second successor, President William McKinley. During his inaugural address, Trump invoked McKinley repeatedly, promising to restore the 25th president’s name to the highest peak in North America.
And the comparison goes beyond admiration – like McKinley and, unlike Cleveland, Trump favors tariffs. Trump and McKinley prioritized the strength of the dollar. They picked two of the youngest vice presidents in history, Theodore Roosevelt and JD Vance. And they both made territorial expansion a part of the national conversation, be it Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam then because of the Spanish-American War, or Greenland today.
McKinley even appointed a commission to explore building a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. During the recent transition and after taking his oath of office, Trump brought trans-American canals back into vogue, with statements about revisiting the Panama Canal Treaties.
But the truth is, for all the lessons of history, there has never been a president like Donald Trump. Nor a former president. That could change in the future, however. Trump’s comeback has redefined how leaders and former leaders think about the office they’ve held, and about what’s possible after.
Trump enters office for the second time with ambitious policy goals. On everything from Russia’s war in Ukraine, to trade, to immigration, the first 100 hours, let alone 100 days of the administration promised activity across the board, and witnessed a series of wide-ranging executive orders. Some men who take up their old jobs again at age 78 might treat it as a sinecure. But Trump left sunny Mar-a-Lago with an agenda. Future former leaders will know that they don’t have to go quietly into that good night when their time in office is done, regardless of their political plans.
The 47th president has learned lessons from his first term that he’s applying to his second, particularly when it comes to personnel. He’s elevated the C-suite, with multiple executives seated prominently at his inauguration and in prominent positions in his administration.
Of course, previous presidents have called on business leaders before. McKinley himself relied on the advice of businessman Mark Hanna and industrial titans like John D. Rockefeller. Presidents have called on the financial sector to bail out the U.S. government twice, in 1893 and 1907. The tycoon Andrew Mellon’s leadership at the Treasury Department through three administrations, from 1921 through 1932, brought private-sector know-how to the heart of government.
Presidents have had private-sector foes, as well, like Henry Luce in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s case. But Trump’s choice of multiple executives to head many of his most important agencies, his prioritization of business experience in his appointments, and the elevation of people like Elon Musk at DOGE combine historical precedents from multiple eras in American history into a new model.
In a crowded media environment where it’s more difficult than ever to break through, Trump has shown how combining political prominence with celebrity status creates a platform like no other. As a candidate in 2016, Trump’s platform rivaled national political figures, though he’d never run for office before.
McKinley even appointed a commission to explore building a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. During the recent transition and after taking his oath of office, Trump brought trans-American canals back into vogue, with statements about revisiting the Panama Canal Treaties.
Nine years later, he has the largest megaphone in the world, and he’s changed how politicians communicate. He brought decades of television and business experience, as well as his more recent status in politics, to new media, be it online outlets or podcasts, circumventing legacy institutions to communicate directly with voters. In the process, he put a presidential stamp of approval on outlets that most politicians ignored, but that have tremendous audiences.
The founding fathers anticipated that former presidents would have roles to play in American life. In ‘Federalist 72,’ Alexander Hamilton asked, ‘Would it promote the peace of the community, or the stability of the government to have half a dozen men who had credit enough to be raised to the seat of the supreme magistracy, wandering among the people like discontented ghosts, and sighing for a place which they were destined never more to possess?’
President Donald Trump is no discontented ghost. He’s back in the White House. Future presidents and former presidents, regardless of party, will follow in his footsteps. And in both parts of their lives – in and out of power – they, like him, can change America.
