Editorial: Trump tramples on a cherished monument

Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, South Florida Sun Sentinel on Dec 30, 2025

Published in Op Eds

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

Susie Wiles was right about one thing.

In a revealing Vanity Fair article, President Donald Trump’s chief of staff said he thinks “there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing. Zero. Nothing.”

Trump confirmed it by having his handpicked board rename one of the nation’s most cherished memorials “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”

Notice who got top billing.

The massive new lettering was obviously in hand before the supposedly unanimous vote. An Ohio congresswoman who’s an ex officio member called in to the meeting only to have her microphone muted when she tried to object. Rep. Joyce Beatty is suing to restore the rightful name.

Chaos, cancellations

Trump restocked the center board with allies such as Wiles and fellow Floridians Brian Ballard, an uber-lobbyist and major Trump fundraiser; Attorney General Pam Bondi; Emilia Fanjul, the wife of Palm Beach sugar baron “Pepe” Fanjul; John Falconetti, a publisher in Jacksonville; and Lynda Lomangino, whose husband, a prominent garbage hauler, is known as the “trash kingpin” of Florida.

In one of their first acts, they made Trump chairman of the center’s board.

Cancellations of performances like “Hamilton” followed. Ticket sales plummeted. A Christmas Eve show was suddenly canceled when a performer refused to appear.

What decent artist would want to dignify Trump’s ego trip?

A violation of federal law

The next president can undo it all if a court or Congress doesn’t, but there’s a clear danger. A man who thinks there’s “nothing he can’t do” has the authority to start a nuclear war by himself.

The Kennedy Center seizure is only the latest act of personal arrogance by Trump but may be the one most indicative of his megalomaniacal mindset. Narcissism can be as debilitating and dangerous as the “alcoholic’s personality” type to which Wiles compared him in her Vanity Fair interview.

The renaming and signage flagrantly violate the legislation that designated the center as the only memorial in Washington to the slain president, who had raised money for it.

The law stipulates that “no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas” of the Kennedy Center. The limited exceptions for major donors do not apply to Trump’s vainglorious violation.

JFK was many things the loutish Trump is not. As Kennedy’s niece, Maria Shriver, posted on Facebook: “He brought the arts into the White House and he and my Aunt Jackie amplified the arts, celebrated the arts, stood up for the arts and artists.”

Utterly without taste

Trump, who never attended the Kennedy Center in his first term, has eviscerated the National Endowment for the Humanities, paved over Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden, and cheapened the Oval Office with tasteless gilt. He demolished the East Wing of the White House as if it belonged to him personally and not to all of us.

Is the Lincoln Memorial next?

After all, renaming the Kennedy Center in his honor is hardly the president’s first act of preposterous vanity. He also calls a new pharmaceutical plan “Trump Rx,” has declared his birthday a free admission day in national parks, ordered up a commemorative coin with his mug on it, and renamed the Institute of Peace for himself.

His latest mind-boggling and budget-busting scheme is a new “Trump class” of battleships that he will help design.

He has taken on the power to deploy the military against U.S. civilians, commit homicide on the oceans and prepare for a war against Venezuela. He has undermined our alliances, jolted world economies with tariffs imposed on his whim, extorted payments from major universities and law firms, bleached racism out of the history displayed at national parks and museums, intimidated critics with baseless lawsuits and threats of regulatory retaliation, and corrupted the Justice Department as an instrument of retribution against political enemies.

There are also several ways, from crypto to AI to Middle Eastern investments, by which his family is profiteering off the nation’s highest office. Under Trump, the presidency is a racket, not a public trust.

He has promised American military personnel bonuses of $1,776 that he has not asked Congress to approve. He reportedly intends to plunder money from military housing appropriations. That the troops might deserve it is beside the point; it’s illegal.

He’s plainly trying to buy their loyalty at the expense of the Constitution.

Trump’s ego is malignant. He’s a throwback not to George III, but to more ancient rulers who put their names and likenesses on everything and were worshiped as gods by people who cried “Hail Caesar!”

_____