Conclusion: Extraordinary President, Ordinary Presidency

The preceding chapters lay out an innovative but straightforward argument: While Trump is an extraordinary president, his presidency is quite ordinary. The distinction between president and presidency is extremely important and one that is too often overlooked in assessments of any US administration. Since US politics is widely characterized as a presidential system, the person of the president is all too often conflated with the success or otherwise of his presidency. But distinguishing between them facilitates a more nuanced assessment of the presidency that any individual president leads.