Party Of One?

He’s a man who prefers quiet nights on twitter to black tie benefits. Now Donald Trump is tasked with becoming the deftest party host on earth.

- Marisa Meltzer

A week after the election, President-Elect Donald Trump went to the 21 Club for dinner with his family. He sat at his favorite table, number 11, and placed his usual order: a well-done burger.

Despite a certain predictability to the tastes of our new president, the question of how the Trump administration will entertain and engage with culture—which boldfaced names will attend his parties, which artists will perform for his guests, which pals will sleep over at the White House—has left observers grasping. Despite the ubiquity of his name, Trump himself is hardly a social butterfly among Manhattanites, and, to put it politely, celebrities disavowed him en masse during his campaign. It’s hard to picture the Trump White House having the salon atmosphere of the Obama White House, where the likes of Beyoncé and Lin-Manuel Miranda were regulars and there was star power not seen since the Reagans.

“The biggest question is, Will he grow into a statesman?” says Alexis Coe, a historian and co-host of the Presidents Are People Too podcast. “There is nothing in the Constitution that requires dazzling White House dinners, but it’s considered a diplomatic tool.” State dinners started in 1874, when Ulysses S. Grant hosted one for David Kalakaua, king of the Hawaiian Islands. Since then presidents have steadily held them, though some barely satisfied the most basic requirements of hosting. “Silent Cal” Coolidge “experienced what was likely a major depressive episode during his presidency,” Coe says, “and would leave his own state dinners early.”