One day, likely by January 20, 2029, Donald Trump will no longer be the president of the United States. The Constitution will bar him from seeking a third term, no matter what nonsense Alan Dershowitz plans to soon publish. It is highly probable that Trump will be replaced by a new Democratic president. America’s economic, social, and moral decline in just the last 11 months makes it unlikely that his successor will win the most votes in 2028.
Other damage will be repairable, but only with time and effort. Federal agencies will need to rehire thousands of civil servants to replace those purged by figures like Elon Musk and Russell Vought. Institutional knowledge at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and more will need to be replenished. Funding for academic and scientific research will need to resume. There will be thousands of green-card applications to approve and hundreds of citizenship ceremonies to hold. Criminal investigations will need to be opened, and antitrust litigation must begin again.
Take, for example, Trump’s campaign against the Kennedy Center. Congress created the cultural center in Washington, D.C., in 1958 and designated it by law as a “living memorial” for John F. Kennedy after his assassination in 1963. The famed stages and theaters along the Potomac have hosted some of the greatest artists from the United States and from around the world.
“I have just been informed that the highly respected Board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from all parts of the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on Twitter this week. “Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation.”
When those letters come down during the next president’s term, it should not be done in the middle of the night or without any warning.
Even the clumsiest and least subtle political cartoonist could not outdo this one. Trump is a weak dealmaker at best: His attempts to bully America’s top trading partners into signing new trade agreements this year have largely failed, and the Supreme Court appears ready to strip him of his favored cudgel. His negotiations on Capitol Hill have gone no further than passing one omnibus budget this summer, after which he abandoned the lawmaking process altogether. “We don’t need to pass any more bills,” Trump bragged in October.
Tearing down these nameplates will be as much about telling the truth as anything else. Other tasks will be more complicated. So far, Trump’s most egregious act was the demolition of the White House’s historic East Wing. It came without any public notice or consultation, without any permission from Congress, and without approval from key historical and architectural boards. The president simply hired some construction equipment and began tearing down public property.
The corrupt and self-serving project is an ongoing scar on one of the most important public sites in America. And yet part of me still hopes that Trump completes the project before the end of his second term. I can imagine no greater visual for the next Democratic president’s first 100 days than demolishing whatever decadent monstrosity he builds. The ballroom’s proposed architectural flaws will likely necessitate this either way, but the next president should make a real show of it.
Given the historic structures near the site, a less explosive—but still spectacular—option might be safer, though. Either way, there must be an element of public participation in the ballroom’s destruction. When Trump tore down the East Wing, his henchmen concealed the rubble from public view, as if they knew on some fundamental level that it was wrong. The next president should make the ballroom’s fate a cause for public celebration. Families should be there to watch it happen. Music should be played for the crowds. Networks should broadcast it live. Americans should celebrate its demise.
Other indignities will lie ahead over the next three years. The U.S. Mint is reportedly planning to issue a dollar coin featuring Trump’s portrait despite the long-standing precedent against using living people on U.S. currency. There have been proposals among Trump’s loyalists in Congress to place him on the $100 or $250 bill, to rename airports after him, to make his birthday a federal holiday, and to carve his likeness into Mount Rushmore.
For now, it is enough to say that the end of Trump’s presidency must be palpably different from previous changes in administrations. Detrumpification must have a visual and physical record. It must be an event and a celebration. It must be an enduring memory and a warning to anyone who hopes to venerate authoritarian figures on American soil in the future. It must represent not just a political defeat but a societal rejection of Trumpism itself.
What Trump and his allies are doing, after all, is not really about honoring him. These tributes are meant to carry the same message as an unrepaired hole in the wall left by a violent domestic abuser’s fist. The goal is to humiliate and to intimidate anyone who didn’t support him, to imply violence without leaving bruises, and to create a perpetual sense of unease, despair, and dread. To visibly erase his image and his name from American public life would not be a distraction from moving forward but rather a prerequisite for it.
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