It’s all about him | Editorial

Ignoring the law and breaking with tradition and decorum, Donald Trump has successfully added his image to U.S. passports, national park passes, and currency. He has draped his looming visage on federal buildings and named investment accounts and a discount drug program after himself.

The president’s self-aggrandizing impulse knows no bounds or limits of reality. In his AI-addled dreams, Trump has put his face on Mount Rushmore, placed himself alongside great military leaders, and even compared himself to Jesus Christ (or, according to Trump, just a doctor in flowing robes bathed in a heavenly glow).

Yet, all his efforts up to this point have proven mostly ephemeral, likely bound for the novelty bin.

And if indeed the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, it will only be a matter of time until Trump’s politics of cruelty and abuse of power are but an unpleasant memory.

It is no wonder, then, that the president is relying on concrete and marble to try and leave any sort of legacy Americans can look up to.

Of course, Trump being Trump, his desperate need for approval, his insatiable hunger for adulation and praise, are inseparable from the corrupt chicanery that characterizes the Art of the Steal.

The president’s bid to remake Washington in his image began with the seemingly overnight demolition of the East Wing of the White House in October to build a massive ballroom. By the time the National Trust for Historic Preservation sued over the project’s defiance of multiple rules and regulations, construction was already underway — funded by a who’s who of companies and individuals who have business interests before the federal government.

Trump has never addressed the appearance of corruption or possibility of quid pro quo deals over the private funding, instead touting the money coming from donors. “This is a gift. This is not going to be paid for by the taxpayer,” he said in May.

However, as the price tag for the arguably needless structure continues to balloon — from an initial $200 million to upwards of $600 million — it is taxpayers who have been left to cover the shortfall. While Senate rules blocked a Republican effort to funnel $1 billion to ballroom security expenses, around $300 million in public funds have already been earmarked.

In August, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed construction to continue on a 5-4 vote. The justices did not rule on the legality of the project, only that the plaintiff did not have the legal standing to sue.

Unlike the ballroom construction effort, Trump has suffered nothing but legal setbacks in his bid to be spoken of in the same breath as JFK. The president’s systematic debasement of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts offers an example of what happens when Trump doesn’t get his way.

In December, a day after Trump’s handpicked board (of which he is the chairman) voted to rename the Kennedy Center in his honor, workers were slapping Trump’s name on the building’s facade. The name change led to widespread cancellation of events by artists and abandonment by audiences and donors.

As a face-saving measure, Trump announced in February that the center would close for two years of renovations. But while a district court judge has ruled repeatedly that Trump’s name was added illegally (the right belongs to Congress), the president has grown more toxic in his possessiveness.

On Sept. 18, protesters formed a human chain outside the center after photos of Trump reviewing a potential demolition plan circulated. While the imminent destruction of the memorial to the slain president has not been confirmed, what is most certainly verified is Trump’s pettiness and disregard for the law.

Congress has appropriated more than $250 million for renovating the center, money which Trump is now holding hostage unless he gets his way. “Because frankly, if we don’t do that, it’s going to close,” he told reporters recently. “It’ll end up being ripped down.”

As the fate of the Kennedy Center remains in flux, across the Potomac River, plans for the 250-foot arch Trump wants built at a traffic roundabout near Arlington National Cemetery are advancing at an alarming pace.

The arch, which would stand more than twice as tall as the nearby Lincoln Memorial, would adversely impact dozens of historic properties, according to the National Park Service. What is more troubling than the results of the agency’s review is that critics contend the report is nothing more than part of a box-checking process, not a real effort to examine the merits of the proposed monument.

Consider that Trump has installed loyalists in the federal panels reviewing the proposal and that its approval — being rushed for the National Capital Planning Commission’s November meeting — is believed to be a fait accompli.

The administration has defended building the arch as the continuation of a project Congress approved in 1925, with the president adding recently that the structure will also serve as a “military complex” that will help ensure national security.

You cannot blame Trump, nor can you excuse him, for his desire for glorification. He is a deeply flawed human being whose lifetime has been defined by the empty flaunting of wealth. But blame for how his unchecked ego has shattered the rule of law can be readily assigned to the Republican-controlled Congress.

Legislators could have stopped the president from any and all of his vainglorious efforts. They chose not to. As the midterms approach, it will be up to voters to do what their representatives couldn’t.

Ultimately, the Art of the Steal may take away the power the GOP sacrificed all to hold on to. Or perhaps Trump will have his way, and his monuments will tower above Washington for generations to come.

Generations who may think of a pitiable man who wanted to be remembered.