The Life in My Years

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Juliet, in her soliloquy, diminishes the significance of a name; in this instance Romeo’s surname, Montague.

Romeo would be the same “dear perfection,” she proclaims, if he were a mere Smith or Jones.

But maybe not a Trump.

Unlike a rose, which would always be pleasantly fragrant even if it were named, say, “dung,” a name can still carry a distinct odor about it. Take the name Trump for instance. Nothing rosy there. More like the stench of a mackerel after ten days under a broiling sun.

That rot was made even more conspicuous and all the more foul when “The John F Kennedy Center For The Performing Arts” was suddenly and somewhat quietly renamed “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.”

When I heard the news, my reaction was the same revulsion as I might have had if I’d opened my front door to get a whiff of that rotting fish. My response on social media included not one, not two, but a total of four “fucks.” And a follow up post included yet one more “fuck.”

As someone who was just hitting double digits in age when John F. Kennedy was in office, and whose parents shared the national fascination with JFK, this renaming to include Donald J. Trump struck me as particularly revolting.

---

TDS?

It stands for Trump Derangement Syndrome, describing a (phony) mental disorder. Accusations of TDS have become popular among Trump’s acolytes when responding to any criticisms of dear leader.  Your common MAGA Joe would call my reaction, hyperbolic, overdone and unduly emotional. A Socialist liberal’s TDS fueled outburst over a harmless name change.

I’ll buy the notion that my response is rife with emotion. Anything requiring five f-bombs is bound to be impassioned. But beyond the stain of bestowing some sort of equivalency between the two men, the act of renaming “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts” is yet another example of two disturbing schemes (and the reactions to those schemes) that have been playing out since Inauguration Day.

---

Lawless

One problem with Trump’s binge of renaming places and things is that many times the name changes are illegal. To rename the Kennedy Center would require an act of Congress (and to be clear, Congress under the “leadership” of Mike Johnson has been characterized not just by inaction but by dereliction) as the Kennedy Center’s name was made law, by Congress, on January 23, 1964.

MAGA Joe would argue that renaming was done, not by Trump himself but by the board of “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.” True enough but that board is composed of a gang of unrepentant sycophants and boot lickers, all headed by the chairman himself –

Donald J. Trump.

---

I don’t know the filthy details of the dishonor done to “The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,”but the new lettering was being installed shortly after, if not at the moment, the change was announced – a fait accompli.

That’s how these things work. Trump, in association with his fellow hoodlums, blithely and knowingly break a law, and then essentially say, ‘what are you gonna do about it.’ Of course there’s an uproar of indignation, but it’s followed by quiet resignation and maybe some random, muffled harrumphing.

I wish that I could walk into the Gucci store, remake my wardrobe and then just walk out without paying, while taunting the dumbfounded clerk with, ‘what are you gonna do about it.’ But I’m not the president, who the Supreme Court ruled can do just about whatever he damn well pleases.

---

Trump didn’t like Gulf of Mexico – so he declared it to be the Gulf of America. Illegal.

Didn’t like Department of Defense. Too wimpy. So, the peace president calls it Department of War. Also illegal.

Stopping at name changes is peanuts compared to the things that can’t be easily undone.

He stopped congressionally approved foreign aid. Likely because the funding was earmarked to help, to use his terminology, “garbage,” in “shit hole” countries. ‘You can’t do that,’ went the crescendo because the aid was funded by Congress. But he did. Congress cowered, nothing was done, people (many of them children) died, and now it all seems forgotten. What are you gonna do about. They’re, you know,

dead.

Trump is illegally bombing boats under the trumped up (pun intended) excuse that the boats are being piloted by “narco-terrorists,” (a made up term) and Republican members of Congress are fine with it. And so, the bombing continues.

The list of illegalities is long and scandalous. Democrats grumble and snort and the lawlessness goes on unabated. In the case of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (because that’s its name, along with Department of Defense and Gulf of Mexico), Democrats have already surrendered.

It’s almost as if Trump and his acolytes work under the principal that “it’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask permission.” Except they always leave out the forgiveness part. They just do, and then say, ‘fuck you, what are you going to do about it.’

The answer?

Nothing.

Can the contractor now defacing The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts not be sued for vandalizing public property? Threaten that enough times and maybe Trump will have trouble finding a company to perform the foul deed. He can have Stephen Miller and Little Marco get on the scaffolding.

Trump is the toddler testing limitations. He started with the ersatz Gulf of America and now he’s graduated to murder on the high seas.

---

An autocrat’s vanity

The Philippines’ strongman Ferdinand Marcos had coins and stamps bearing his likeness As did Mussolini, Hitler, and Francisco Franco. Schools, hospitals and other public buildings bore the name of Saddam Hussein. Kim Il Sung had a public square named after himself. Hitler had streets, squares and stadiums named after him. The Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo had a peak, a province, bridges, buildings and an entire city named after himself. Banners bearing Mao Zedong as the kindly uncle were displayed on public buildings.

As a rule, one that America has consistently adhered to, these honors are usually bestowed on leaders who are either deceased or have left office. It’s a rule that doesn’t apply to dictators, autocrats and strong men.

It’s the cult of personality that is required for the autocrats to maintain a vice grip on a nation’s people. An essential part of the autocrat’s game plan is for him to appear ubiquitous. Sort of like

God.

Francisco Macías Nguema of Equatorial Guinea didn’t stop at hospitals, universities and streets, he also had his own motto, “There is no other god than Francisco Nguema”. Is that so much different than the red “Trump was right about everything” cap? Or, even worse, the images of Trump as a superhero, or an agent of the Lord,or an actual deity.

That hasn’t been the way of the American republic. In America stamps, coins, buildings, and airports (among many other things) honor deserving (stress deserving) politicians after those men and women are deceased.

And yet the cult of personality has taken hold in an America that has rejected such a thing for 250 years.

In January of this year, Congressman Addison McDowell of North Carolina introduced a bill to rename Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport. That was just five days after the inauguration and before Trump’s scorched earth campaign on America. In his proposal McDowell crowed, “We have entered the golden age of America largely thanks to President Trump’s leadership.” That’s aged well.

On Inauguration Day the USPS unveiled a cachet featuring the likenesses of Trump and J.D. Vance.

Trump’s angry mug is now next to George Washington’s image on the new National Parks pass.

A banner showing Trump’s threatening scowl has been hanging on the Department of Labor building since August. The banner features a touch of burlesque with the motto “America’s Workers First.”

Just like Marcos, Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, Trump may be getting his own commemorative, bona fide currency.

The Trump Administration is proposing having Trump’s image “grace” a one dollar coin. One design has a side showing a profile of Trump while the other side features, not the American eagle or a monument, but Trump’s fist raised post-assassination pose and the words “Fight -Fight – Fight.”

Minting the coin would be clearly illegal, as the law states that a president can appear on a coin no sooner than two years after his death. One doubts that the coin won’t go full speed ahead. When it does get minted the appropriate motto should be “What are you gonna do about it.”

---

Hakeem Jeffries concerns seem a bit too muted. One wishes that he, the Democrats at large, and the media (he said with a sarcastic laugh), would be more vocal in describing Trump’s dictatorial bent for having things named after himself and having his scowling, “don’t fuck with me or else” visage placed on everything.

After 250 years an American Caesar should still be considered

un-American.