You wouldn’t be alone if you feel that the US more closely resembles North Korea these days – with giant images of the dear leader scowling down on the citizenry, and his name inscribed everywhere from public buildings to street signs, transportation hubs and self-aggrandizing monuments.
Thursday’s unfurling of a massive banner bearing the visage of Donald J Trump, the 47th US president, on the exterior of the Washington headquarters of the federal justice department was only the latest example of how he has imposed himself on every facet of American life. Some critics have called it “dictator vibes”.
Trump’s mighty persona, it seems, cannot be escaped. And it cannot be ignored. Here’s a look at the some of the places where the president has made himself omnipresent, or seeks to, since his return to office last year:
Public buildings
Places where people congregate in numbers, or at least used to, are top of Trump’s list to get his face, and name, seen.
The most prominent example is the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, inaugurated in 1971 as a “living memorial” to the assassinated president but hijacked by Trump cronies who quickly installed him as the leader of its board. Ticket sales crumbled, artists walked away, and it was announced earlier in February that the venue would close for two years for “refurbishment”. In December, Trump added his own name to the center – illegally in the view of critics, including Kennedy’s relatives.
The US Institute of Peace was an early victim of Trump’s second-term Doge (department of government efficiency) drive to cut perceived wasteful government spending. Similar to the Kennedy Center takeover, the previous board was ousted, and its Washington headquarters became a shell of its former self after most staff were fired. In December, the engravers moved in, and Trump’s name was chiselled into the institute’s wall.
Giant banners of Trump’s face almost identical to the recent justice department installation were erected at the Department of Agriculture and at the labor department last year.
Public transportation
Florida state legislature Republicans on Tuesday voted to rename the airport in West Palm Beach, where the president flies frequently between the White House and his private Mar-a-Lago club, the “President Donald J Trump International Airport”. Just days previously, the Trump Organization applied to trademark the name, opening the door to lucrative merchandising opportunities and taxpayer-funded licensing agreements, although the company insisted it was not seeking to profit from the move.
Between the airport and Mar-a-Lago, the president is driven across a section of road newly renamed President Donald J Trump Boulevard, formerly plain old Southern Boulevard, in another act of fealty by Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature.
Trump also has designs on other transportation hubs. New York’s Penn Station is said to be his prime target. And recent reports suggested he would unfreeze billions of dollars in federal funding for a major infrastructure project in the north-east only if the Democratic US Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, supported his efforts to rename the railroad station and Washington’s Dulles international airport after himself.
US military
One of the president’s most frequent boasts is how he has “rebuilt” the US military into a leaner, meaner fighting machine. As part of this perceived revival, it was announced in December that a new “golden fleet” of warships known as Trump-class destroyers would be commissioned, complete with hypersonic weapons, high-power lasers and nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles.
Sports facilities
The Washington Commanders’ new $3.7bn, 65,000-seat domed stadium, set to open in 2030, will be named Trump Stadium – if the White House gets its way. “It’s what the president wants, and it will probably happen,” a presidential administration official told ESPN, insisting that Trump was responsible for getting the project off the ground because the stadium is being built on land controlled by the National Park Service.
Public monuments
It hasn’t happened yet, but Trump’s face could one day get carved into the face of Mount Rushmore, the South Dakota memorial to four presidents of the past: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. Proposed legislation by the sycophantic Florida Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna last year went nowhere. But the site has long been on Trump’s radar, even before his controversial independence day speech and divisive fireworks there in 2020.
The president’s most recent monumental wheeze, meanwhile, is a plan for a 250ft arch: a so-called Arc de Trump, to be built on land adjacent to the Potomac River in Washington DC. Critics say the project exudes “dictator for life” vibes – while Trump himself has portrayed it as a crucial ingredient of domestic policy.
Finance
If the word Obamacare became synonymous with his predecessor’s signature health care achievements, Trump aims to emulate the success of name-branding with Trump accounts, a forthcoming savings initiative for new parents. Any baby born before 31 December 2028 will receive a $1,000 head start from the Trump administration in a venture critics say will become another tax-shelter for already wealthy American families while excluding children born to immigrants.
