I was thinking about how Trump slathers his name everywhere. Now he wants to replace Dulles Airport and Penn Central with his name in exchange for releasing needed federal infrastructure funds.
What really started me thinking about this was renaming the Kennedy Center. What kind of person puts HIS name on a memorial to someone else? On a memorial to a beloved assassinated President?
So I went to Kennedy-center.org to see what he had actually done. At the top left it says “The Trump Kennedy Center”. But that is NOWHERE ELSE on the website. That’s it. He and his minions care about nothing else; just the name on the building, and two minutes to change the logo. They don’t bother to change the name of the site, or the description. Nothing.
“I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty.”
John F. Kennedy, 1961
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad that’s all they changed, but it is so revelatory. They don’t care about anything but slapping Trump’s name on a building. That’s it. You can still read the original purpose of the Kennedy Center:
By an act of Congress — Public Law 88-260 signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson — it was originally planned to be called The National Cultural Center. But in January of 1964, it officially became the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
On January 23, 1964, President Johnson said, “All those who worked in this cause can now know that they are not only honoring the memory of a very great man, but they are enriching our whole American life.”
President Kennedy was not an artist. He was a champion of the arts. “If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him,” he said in 1961. “We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.”
He recognized that if the United States was to continue to grow and flourish, it would have to continue to develop its culture, declaring, “To further the appreciation of culture among all the people. To increase respect for the creative individual, to widen participation by all the processes and fulfillments of art — this is one of the fascinating challenges of these days.”
But perhaps his greatest achievement was to be a visionary leader who understood the value of supporting the visions of others; that enriching and supporting the arts was the means to make our nation into the best version of herself. With his eyes always on the future, he said in 1961, “I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty.”
Trump slaps his imperious name on everything. Wine, steaks, hotels, golf courses. And now the Kennedy Center. But the memorial will never be for him.
From NYT (Peter Baker, 2/15/26):
His picture has been splashed all over the White House, on multistory banners on the side of federal buildings, on annual passes to national parks and maybe even soon on a one-dollar coin. His name has been etched on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, on the U.S. Institute of Peace, on federal investment accounts, special visas and a discount drug programand, if he has his way, on Washington Dulles International Airport, Penn Station in New York and the future stadium of the Washington Commanders.
His White House is pressuring the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery to display portraits of Mr. Trump by his supporters. A group of cryptocurrency investors has shelled out $300,000 to forge a 15-foot-tall gold-covered bronze statue of Mr. Trump called “Don Colossus” to be installed at his golf complex in Doral, Fla.
His administration is considering designating a new class of battleships in Mr. Trump’s name. His allies are pressuring foreign leaders to endorse his bid for the Nobel Peace Prize and threatening consequences for resisting.