Editor's Note: This story and headline have been updated.
New York Times columnist Michelle Cottle argued in a Tuesday editorial that President Trump’s ongoing effort to rename institutions after himself has one unexpected upshot, namely, it distracts the president from potentially more harmful actions.
First, Cottle said that the renamings can be undone later, explaining that once Trump himself is no longer in political power, he will not be able to so easily intimidate his followers and other easily-pressured people to cede to his wishes.
"But do not exhale yet," Cottle wrote. "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," she continued.
The columnist noted "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," she wrote. "And whenever the fever breaks, America can begin to figure out when and how much of Mr. Trump’s self-honoring to roll back."
While Trump’s re-namings are self-indulgent, “no one is getting gunned down in the process" of slapping Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts or trying to negotiate renaming Dulles Airport with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Cottle observed.
Cottle closed by saying that removing these names will be easier than fixing Trump’s damage to "government agencies, policy programs, democratic norms, the rule of law.”
Speculating on what a rollback of Trump’s re-namings would look like, Cottle said that "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 GOP base.”
She added, “Heaven forbid we wind up in an endless cycle of rerebranding insanity, depending on who controls Washington at any given moment."
In contrast with Cottle, CNN’s Aaron Blake argued on Friday that Trump’s attempts at renaming are inherently corrupt because of how the president personally profits from them. Blake pointed out that Trump attempted to hold $16 billion hostage intended for an underwater New York-New Jersey underwater construction project in exchange for renaming New York’s Penn Station and Washington Dulles International Airport.
"His proposition to Schumer practically slaps you across the face in its degree of blatant self-dealing," Blake wrote in his editorial. "Republicans should probably start asking themselves how much they’re willing to entertain this level of self service."
According to writer Michael Wolff, Trump’s attempt to rename the Kennedy Center even met with mild pushback from his own inner circle. Wolff reported that Trump initially wanted to remove President Kennedy’s name entirely from the building, asking “Why does this have to be Kennedy? That was such a long time ago.” He added that because Trump was almost assassinated, “it should be me."
“You can’t say, ‘This is a terrible idea. This is a megalomaniacal idea. This is not good politics,’” Wolff said, explaining the staffers’ plight. “You just cannot say any of that stuff to Trump. So instead, they said, ‘Well, why don’t we call it the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center?’”
The journalist concluded, "It’s a perfect Trump setup. He goes for the absurd, and he settles for the outlandish."
