President Trump is not a renowned reader. But it increasingly feels as though someone at the White House should leave a printout of “Ozymandias” next to his TV remote.
In recent discussions, Trump administration officials reportedly told Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Senate minority leader, that the president would unfreeze billions in funding for a delayed rail tunnel under the Hudson River — if Mr. Schumer would push to rename Penn Station in New York and Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., in Mr. Trump’s honor. Never mind that the president shouldn’t hold hostage billions in congressionally appropriated funding.
Mr. Schumer reportedly refused, thank God. It’s easy to imagine that slippery slope whizzing us to a landscape cluttered with Trump-branded turnpikes, rivers and dams stretching from the Gulf of Trump to the Golden Trump Bridge.
But do not exhale yet. Mr. Trump is still on a renaming crusade that seems aimed not at building a legacy so much as appropriating those of others. He seems to find that approach easier.
As president, the real estate mogul and self-proclaimed builder of great things has turned out to be not much of a builder at all. He tears stuff down. Occasionally, as with the East Wing of the White House, he destroys something meaningful, with an eye toward replacing it with a bigger, golder version more befitting his imperial tastes. But he seems to lack what it takes to create or even to inspire institutions or monuments built to endure.
Drawing glory and profit from the creations of others has long been part of Mr. Trump’s M.O. The Trump Organization has licensed the family name for use on other companies’ developments. At developments as far afield as Trump International Hotel and Tower Vancouver and Trump private mansions in the United Arab Emirates, licensing agreements let Mr. Trump take credit for a global real estate empire while avoiding the construction work and assuming none of the responsibility.
Now in his golden years, the president seems determined to put his stamp on public landmarks and institutions built neither by him nor in his honor. He has rebranded the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the U.S. Institute of Peace, even while trying to gut the institute. Ever obsessed with football, he reportedly wants his name on the new stadium planned for the Washington Commanders. A Trump-Dulles airport rebrand would help him one-up his presidential predecessors, seeing as the international airport is much bigger than the nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport. And a Trump Penn Station, in the heart of Manhattan, would rub his name in the faces of all those snooty New Yorkers who continue to deny him the respect he has craved for his entire adult life. No matter how rich or successful he becomes, Mr. Trump, a Queens native, remains an outer boroughs boy stewing over the contempt of his hometown’s cultural elite.
With his low popularity, Mr. Trump may be realizing that he will never win broad public adulation. Then again, maybe he’s operating out of pure, untethered vanity. Either way, he aims to elbow his way into the everyday lives of an ungrateful nation, even — especially — in places that don’t much care for him, while he can still bully people to comply.
For a dismayed public, there are consolations. Mr. Trump’s renaming effort carries the stench of stolen valor, but it results in less cruelty and human suffering than so much else the president is up to. Carving his name into buildings might be self-indulgent, but no one is getting gunned down in the process. Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the House minority leader, has derided the renaming as “presidential graffiti,” which captures its inherent pettiness.
It is also worth remembering that what has been renamed once can be renamed again. Trumpism will not last forever. Elements might endure, but the MAGA movement is at heart a cult of personality unlikely to outlast its singular leader for very long in its existing form. And whenever the fever breaks, America can begin to figure out when and how much of Mr. Trump’s self-honoring to roll back.
Scrubbing the names of discredited authoritarians from the public square is nothing new. Some countries go the full purge. Others, as with Italy’s post-Mussolini cleanse, are less meticulous. Post-Trump, the sensible approach to debranding will probably be slow and steady. Lunging forward the moment Mr. Trump cedes the stage would only trigger a backlash from the G.O.P. base. Heaven forbid we wind up in an endless cycle of rerebranding insanity, depending on who controls Washington at any given moment.
Removing presidential graffiti promises to be one of the easier repair jobs. Government agencies, policy programs, democratic norms, the rule of law — Mr. Trump is smearing his grubby fingerprints across so much more than a few edifices. The reconstruction will be long and daunting, especially if we take the opportunity to (with apologies to President Joe Biden) build back better. There are no quick fixes. Pretending otherwise would just lay the groundwork for public disappointment and bitterness.
As for the Trumpian faithful who may remain, they should be encouraged to celebrate their chief in the private sphere. Already there is a 15-foot gilded statue, nicknamed Don Colossus, awaiting installation on the grounds of Mr. Trump’s Doral golf complex in Florida. Why stop there? Mar-a-Lago, Bedminster, Trump Tower — so many Trump properties are waiting to be adorned with ostentatious tributes funded by fans. This is America. People have a God-given right to flush their money down whatever gold-plated toilets they choose. Just leave public tax dollars and venerable institutions out of it.
Michelle Cottle writes about national politics for Opinion. She has covered Washington and politics since the Clinton administration. @mcottle
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