notandus, ergo sum

As a young man in New York, Donald Trump was determined to stamp his name onto physical structures. He was Fred Trump’s son, he was on the make, and he wanted to leave his own indelible mark on Manhattan—the wealthiest borough in the city and one his father had never conquered. Putting his name on a gleaming Fifth Avenue tower was an exercise in branding into the American consciousness. For Donald Trump, to be famous was to exist. 

Forty years later and at the pinnacle of American power, the by-now-seventy-nine-year-old Trump was obsessed with dreams of legacy and determined to use the scope of an imperial presidency to imprint his name on everything, including the low-rise cityscape of Washington, D.C. 

By the norms of history, the naming rights for monuments belonged to subsequent generations, and those honors were conferred by Congress, by historians and commissions, and by public acclaim. It was the American way. But Donald Trump had long since demonstrated that he could adore himself far more, and in greater detail, than anyone else might. Why wait? He had watched in rage as his name was removed from buildings in New York City in protest during his first presidency and after its calamitous end. It was a mistake to assume others would praise you for your efforts, he told The New York Times in 1980. “If you let people treat you how they want, you’ll be made a fool,” he said, before adding, “I don’t want to be made anybody’s sucker.” 

John F. Kennedy had never named anything for himself. Nor had any other President in American history openly campaigned for a public structure to bear his name—though a few, like Washington and Hoover, had buildings or landmarks named for them by others while still in office. President Gerald Ford went so far as to refuse to sign a bill that would have renamed a courthouse and federal office building after him. Ford said he knew of no federal buildings that had been named for a President while still in office, and if he were to accept the honor it “might begin a precedent I believe it best not to establish.” 

One of Kennedy’s legacies, together with the First Lady Jackie Kennedy, had been turning the White House into a showcase for American arts and high culture, inviting poets, musicians, actors, and dancers to perform at social events, special concerts, and state dinners. When Kennedy was slain it seemed natural that a nation searching for a way to celebrate his life would name a cultural center in his honor. On January 23, 1964, the National Cultural Center—created by an act of Congress at the end of the Eisenhower administration—was officially renamed the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, to serve as the “sole national memorial” to the thirty-fifth President. 

Since then, the Kennedy Center had served as the cultural center of the capital city, the longtime home of the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera, and the host of the world-renowned Kennedy Center Honors. 

In this most political city in the country, the Kennedy Center was for decades managed by a bipartisan board, maintaining a reputation for political neutrality, focused on artistic excellence rather than partisan favor. But Trump had refused to attend the Kennedy Center award ceremony during his first term because so many of the artists had made it clear they were anti-Trump. Now, in his second term, he would not only attend the ceremony, but he would have a hand in picking the honorees. And he would appoint himself the evening’s host. 

When on December 18, 2025, the board of directors of the Kennedy Center had voted unanimously to change the name to “the Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” Trump feigned surprise and humility that the board—which he had personally selected just a few weeks after his second inauguration and of which he was now the chairman—would bestow such an honor. 

The renaming was enthusiastically embraced by Sergio Gor, then the head of the presidential personnel office, but later dispatched as ambassador to India. When Gor raised it with Trump months earlier, the President loved it. You’re doing all this work for the Kennedy Center, Gor had told him flatteringly. You got the money. You should at least get your name on it with JFK. 

The White House quietly ordered the large letters “DONALD J. TRUMP” to be added to the facade well before the board had even rubber-stamped the authorization to rename the building…

Haberman, Maggie; Swan, Jonathan. Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump (pp. 365-367). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Quite the read...