When was the last time you went a whole day without thinking about the president?
Just this month, you may have seen that Donald Trump posted a racist video of Barack and Michelle Obama, demanded Dulles International Airport and Penn Station be renamed for him, falsely claimed that he was “100% exonerated” on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, nominated a man accused of being a white nationalist to the State Department and criticized the Super Bowl halftime show, to name just a few headlines.
It’s no small irony that President’s Day may be one of the few days this year that many Americans won’t hear much about Trump.
It’s no small irony, then, that Presidents’ Day may be one of the few days this year that many Americans won’t hear much about Trump. Whether they’re using their day off to get outside for a hike or head to the mall (Presidents’ Day sales!), they could be blissfully tuned out from the nonstop barrage.
A nonstop presidency wasn’t supposed to be the norm. The Framers of the Constitution envisioned that Congress would be the rowdy center of American political life, with the president only stepping in during an emergency or to outline a broad goal for the country. They certainly didn’t think he would be the constant center of everyone’s attention, like your messy friend who is always having a crisis during your birthday party.
Yes, I know that I cover national politics and live in Washington, D.C., so I may be more attuned to the drama than the average American. But the data suggests I’m not alone.
While people tended to search online for George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden during key moments of their terms, such as the State of the Union address or the introduction of major legislation, they searched for Trump all year long throughout his first term and since he returned to office. In fact, a slow day for Trump on Google is often higher than a peak day for one of his predecessors.
To be fair, Trump tends to name programs for himself, so he’s getting a small boost from searches for, say, Trump accounts for kids, his TrumpRx prescription drug plan or the Trump Gold Card. And the top breakout search term was his One Big Beautiful Bill, as you might expect.
But most of those searches were not on substantive policy matters. Over the past year, the top breakout terms were for things such as Trump’s birthday military parade, his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his comments on the death of beloved movie director Rob Reiner, his complaints about the Nobel Peace Prize or his long-running relationship with Epstein.
This isn’t healthy. Not for the president, or for us, or for American democracy. Trump has sought to put himself at the center of not only our national economy — by levying tariffs and bullying the Federal Reserve — but also at the center of the attention economy. While he frequently complains about negative press coverage, it’s worth remembering he once argued that “bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all.” This isn’t healthy. Not for him, or for us, or for American democracy. The president is now omnipresent; his name added to everything from the Kennedy Center to the Institute of Peace to a new class of warships. He opines on everything from the Grammys to late-night talk show hosts to the Winter Olympics to the proper targets of federal prosecutions. Sometimes these rambling thoughts are lost as the new cycle moves on, but other times, White House aides or congressional allies rush to turn the president’s whims into policy, or at least echo them in press conferences and interviews. Like Groundhog’s Day, we are stuck in an endless loop of Trump. Every day is Presidents’ Day now, and there’s no end in sight.
Ryan Teague Beckwith is a newsletter editor for MS NOW. He has previously worked for such outlets as Time magazine and Bloomberg News. He teaches journalism at Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies and is the creator of Your First Byline. 
