The White House does not belong to Donald Trump. It is the property of the United States — of the American people. The president is a temporary resident whose claim on the building lasts only as long as his time in office, which is set by the Constitution.
The Smithsonian Institution does not belong to President Trump, either. It is not even part of the executive branch. It was established by Congress in 1846 as a “trust instrumentality,” an independent organization backed by the government and administered by a Board of Regents that consists of the chief justice and the vice president of the United States, federal lawmakers and private citizens. In the broad sense, then, the Smithsonian also belongs to the American people, as an expression of their interest in “the Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge.”
And it should go without saying that Washington, D.C. — a city of 700,000 people with its own government and elected leaders — is neither the president’s plaything nor his possession.
Of course none of this has kept the president from acting as if he does own the White House, the Smithsonian, the District of Columbia and practically everything else under the flag as well. It has not stopped him from paving over the historic Rose Garden or developing plans to construct a gaudy new ballroom for an executive mansion now adorned in the same manufactured, faux-baroque glamour as his other, chintz-draped properties.
That Trump lacks any claim on the Smithsonian has not stopped him from trying to impose his vision of American history on its museums. His administration is in the process of trying to censor exhibits that, in his view, spend too much time on the ugly side of the American experience. “The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” the president wrote on his Truth Social website. It is clear, from his mention of slavery, that the president has the National Museum of African American History in his cross hairs. But the White House review of the Smithsonian extends to other museums as well. The administration “aims to ensure alignment with the president’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.”
And the president’s clear sense of ownership over Washington has expressed itself in the form of an armed military occupation of the most visible parts of the city. Trump has also called for a $2 billion “beautification” campaign to shape the city to his liking. It is not for nothing that he has hung large portraits of himself from federal buildings, in a flourish befitting the authoritarian and totalitarian societies he so deeply admires.
Relative to the worst of the Trump administration — the destruction of the nation’s capacity for scientific and medical research, the indiscriminate arrest of immigrants by roving bands of masked agents, and its base-line lawlessness — the president’s move to treat the public property of the United States as part of his personal estate is a minor, almost trivial offense. Who does it hurt, really, if Trump wants to build a second Mar-a-Lago on the Potomac? Is it really an issue if the nation’s museums spend a little less time on slavery — especially if most attendees will learn about it elsewhere? And while the occupation of Washington is far from trivial, it is not hard to find prominent voices who think the president has a point about crime and disorder in the nation’s capital.
This is wrongheaded. Trump’s pretense to ownership of public goods and public spaces isn’t some quirk to be ignored or waited out — “there goes our Donald!” — but a direct expression of his autocratic ambitions and despotic cast of mind. We can almost see him as he sees himself, not as president of a republic — and subject to external constraints — but as an American Bonaparte (albeit more Louis Napoleon than the original) sitting astride the nation itself. Less a caretaker bound to the rhythms of constitutional time than a sovereign ruler of limitless authority.
Or as Trump said during his first term, “I have an Article II where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”
On Monday, the president held a news conference in the Oval Office while signing a number of executive orders. Flanked by his most loyal subordinates — some of whom took the opportunity to lavish him with obsequious praise — Trump took questions and monologued about the glories of his rule.
“We have tremendous things in every way,” he declared. “It’s hard to believe you can do that when you have a corrupt media. Many of you are corrupt. There’s nothing we can do about it. We keep winning and we are going to keep winning.”
The atmosphere was more regal than republican.
The executive orders themselves were presented as royal decrees. Under one, which purported to announce a new criminal offense: Anyone caught burning the stars and stripes would be investigated for a kind of lèse-majesté and sent to prison if guilty. “If you burn a flag you get one year in jail,” Trump said. “No early exits.” In another decree, the president announced the creation of a so-called rapid response force of National Guard troops, to be deployed wherever he says there is crime or disorder. Trump also mused about the extent of his own power as he mocked opponents of his domestic deployments. “They say we don’t need it — ‘freedom, freedom, he’s a dictator,’ ” sneered the president. “Maybe we would like a dictator,” he continued, “I don’t want a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense and a smart person.”
It should be obvious that the president doth protest too much. To watch this display — to take in this spectacle — was to see, in perfect limpid clarity, his desires made manifest. He may not want to be a dictator — that may be a little too modern for his tastes — but he clearly wants to be a king. As Trump said the next day during a televised cabinet meeting, “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States.”
Later on Monday, the president announced that he had fired Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, over allegations of mortgage fraud. This has less to do with a sincere interest in good government — again, this is Donald Trump we’re talking about — than it does the president’s embrace of radical theories of executive power, by which he claims total control over the executive branch, ignoring Congress, imposing his will on independent agencies and dismantling those parts of the federal bureaucracy that offend his sensibilities. Trump does not like Fed independence and sees Cook as his path to personal power over the nation’s monetary policy.
But Trump can’t fire anyone from the Federal Reserve Board, and Cook says she won’t resign. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no excuse exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” she said in a statement on Tuesday. “I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022.”
The president will no doubt try to pressure both Cook and her boss, Jerome Powell, but there’s no guarantee that he’ll succeed. Cook has the law on her side, and she may well prevail. Her choice to stand her ground is a reminder that while Trump may want to be a king, it is still up to us, as Americans, whether we treat him like one.
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Jamelle Bouie became a New York Times Opinion columnist in 2019. Before that he was the chief political correspondent for Slate magazine. He is based in Charlottesville, Va.
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