“That’s the tactic they use,” said Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island senator, pondering whether Donald Trump might attach his name to the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “You float stuff and you float stuff and you float stuff until people get inured to what a stupid or outrageous thing it is that has been floated and then you pull the trigger.”
Whitehouse was sitting in his Senate office and speaking to the Guardian at 11am on Thursday 18 December. Two hours later, his words proved prophetic. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, announced on X that the Kennedy Center board had “voted unanimously” to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
In November Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate environment and public works (EPW) committee, launched a formal investigation into allegations of widespread cronyism, financial mismanagement and corruption at what he describes as a “secular temple to the arts”.
Democrats on the committee said they obtained documents that suggest the national cultural centre is being operated as a “slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies”, resulting in millions of dollars in losses and a significant deviation from its statutory mission.
I actually like this idea. Perhaps the next President keeps the Hall of Presidents pictures/paintings up but leaves just Donald J Trump’s name up on the plaque and no picture. Just a name that states yeah, there was this dude that was the 45th and then the 47th President. Nothing else.
Unfortunately, and ironically, he will be one of the most studied presidents in history. He will be the subject of books and Masters and PhD theses for the rest of this century.
Cheers. I do think it is very important to be far more respectful than he is, what with the stupid autopen BS. It is so tempting to put up a picture of a rotting turd… That is just not the example one should set for the people. :x