Trump has ordered the U.S. Treasury to draft a $1 coin featuring him on both sides, for the purpose of “honoring America’s 250th Birthday and @POTUS,” according to Treasury officials.
Meanwhile, Trump wants the Washington Commanders to name their planned $3.7 billion stadium after him. A senior White House source told ESPN: “It’s what the president wants, and it will probably happen.” Presumably, Trump’s name will be carved into a granite facade at the stadium’s entrance.
The giant $300 million ballroom that Trump is adding to the White House is called “the President Donald J. Trump Ballroom” on the list of donors to the project, and senior administration officials say the name is likely to stick.
Trump is moving to immortalize himself with his name etched into coins, carved into pediments, and inscribed into White House marble. He wants to glorify himself in the most permanent ways possible.
This is what fascist dictators do when in power. Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini built monuments to glorify themselves so they’d be exalted in history.
Democracies don’t do this. They memorialize their heroes only after they’ve died, and only if the public wants them commemorated.
Trump deserves to be remembered — but not as a hero. To the contrary: It is our solemn duty to ensure he is remembered for all that he has done and may still do to destroy American democracy.
He must be remembered as the president who claimed without evidence that an election was “stolen” from him. Who then instigated a coup that included false electors, threats to state officials, and an assault on the U.S. Capitol that resulted in five deaths and injuries to 174 police officers.
He should be remembered as the president who, after being reelected, tried to erase the nation’s memory of what he had done by pardoning 1,600 rioters who had been criminally convicted for participating in the Capitol attack and 77 people who had conspired with him to carry out the attempted coup. He called them all “patriots.”
He must be remembered as the president who then usurped the powers of Congress. Who denied people due process of law. Who prosecuted his political opponents. Who violated international law by killing people he labeled enemy combatants. Who sent the military into American cities over the objections of their mayors and governors. And who openly and brazenly took bribes.
We must not allow Trump to erase this history with false tributes to himself, etched into silver, marble, or granite.
Instead, after he is gone, a monument should be erected to remind future generations of Trump’s treachery and the treachery of officials who supported him.
It would be a simple building constructed of iron and cement, containing the records of his attacks on democracy and the names of everyone who aided him.
Over its doorway would be the words “Trump’s Treason.”
It would be situated on the White House lawn where the Trump ballroom (since demolished) once stood. It would face Pennsylvania Avenue so that families visiting the nation’s capital — including those commemorating America’s 500th anniversary — have easy access, and will long remember this catastrophe.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/