Turns out you cannot just slap your name on a national cultural institution because your ego needs more square footage.
Workers are removing Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center after a federal judge ruled that the Trump-controlled board did not have the legal authority to rename the building.
That’s right….A national memorial honoring President John F. Kennedy was renamed after Donald Trump.
Not by Congress.
Not by the American people.
Not because of some overwhelming public demand.
Just because people with power decided that apparently every building, airport, golf course, and flat surface in America should eventually have Trump’s name on it.
And now the letters are coming down.
This Is About More Than a Sign
The Kennedy Center does not belong to Donald Trump.
It does not belong to his board.
It does not belong to whichever political party happens to be in power.
It belongs to the American people.
That is why the court stepped in.
Because public institutions are not personal trophies.
Imagine if every president simply renamed national landmarks after themselves.
The Lincoln Memorial becomes the Obama Memorial.
The Washington Monument becomes the Bush Monument.
The Statue of Liberty becomes whatever billionaire happened to be writing checks that week.
Most Americans would immediately recognize how ridiculous that sounds.
Yet somehow we are supposed to pretend this situation was perfectly normal.
The Ego Never Stops
This is the part that always amazes me.
There are more than 600 Trump-branded properties around the world.
Hotels.
Golf courses.
Residential towers.
Resorts.
Licensing deals.
Merchandise.
Books.
Coins.
NFTs.
Shoes.
Apparently that was still not enough.
At some point the question stops being “Why are people taking the name down?”
And becomes:
“Why was it there in the first place?”
The Workers Deserve an Award
Somewhere in Washington, workers showed up with scaffolding, tools, and a court order.
Honestly, they may be the heroes of the week.
Because there is something beautifully symbolic about watching actual working people undo something powerful people never should have done.
One letter at a time.
One bolt at a time.
One giant ego adjustment at a time.
The Lesson
Rules matter.
Laws matter.
Public institutions matter.
And no matter how powerful someone becomes, they do not get to turn national landmarks into vanity projects.
The letters are coming down.
The court has spoken.
The building survives.
The republic survives.
And somewhere, a tarp is doing the Lord’s work.
What in the flip?
Scarlett says no.