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Letters to the Editor | Dec. 25, 2025

Inquirer readers on the renaming of the Kennedy Center and President Trump’s use of pardon power.

Pro-Trump demonstrators during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The president granted clemency to all of the roughly 1,600 defendants in the case on the first day of his second term in January.
Pro-Trump demonstrators during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The president granted clemency to all of the roughly 1,600 defendants in the case on the first day of his second term in January.Read moreJESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
    by Letters to the Editor, For The Inquirer
    Published 

Disharmony

Donald Trump has a fixation on putting his name on everything he can find. His latest is the Kennedy Center. Animals mark their territory, but the smell dissipates quickly. The stench from Trump’s antics will take years to remove.

Barry Adams, Malvern

. . .

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has had wonderfully harmonious moments.

The recent addition of Donald J. Trump’s name to the center creates a brash, clanging disharmony.

Consider three examples:

Kennedy inspired the creation of the Peace Corps. Trump eviscerated the U.S. Agency for International Development, leaving children starving and food rotting.

Kennedy instituted the Alliance for Progress, which brought hopes of prosperity and peace to Latin America. Trump ordered the military to murder suspected drug smugglers from Latin America.

Kennedy laid the moral foundation for the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965). Trump directed states to redraw congressional boundaries so as to reduce nonwhite representation.

Bring back harmony and erase Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center. Adding Trump’s name is an insult to the memory and inspirational presidency of Kennedy, who said, “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” In Trump’s case, it’s always been the other way around.

Terry Furin, Philadelphia

Pardon or consequences

Two of your recent editorial cartoon selections shone a light on the changing state of criminal punishment in the United States today: One showed a Santa protester holding a sign that says, “RELEASE THE NAUGHTY LIST.” The other showed Santa checking his “Naughty List” of drug dealers, insurrectionists, fraudsters, etc., but with the word “Naughty” changed to “Pardon.”

In 2025, facing punishment for misdeeds is no longer a sure thing. Whether it’s a federal conviction for storming the U.S. Capitol, bringing illegal drugs into the country, or defrauding investors, if you support the president, he’ll make it all go away. Donald Trump bragged during his campaign that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue without losing any of his supporters. He may have been right — and he is sharing that immunity with any of his friends who need it.

Wayne Williams, Malvern

. . .

How come Donald Trump can get away with just about anything: demolishing the East Wing, dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, freezing congressionally appropriated funds, just to name a few? And while each of those things occurred when he was president, bending the rules has been his MO, as a business person, since Day One. If you or I did the same thing, they’d throw the book at us. Trump? He gets the U.S. Supreme Court to say a president can’t be held accountable for anything he does while in office. The founders are turning over in their graves. Can you imagine what Trump would do if Joe Biden did everything he has done over the past 11 months?

Biden Derangement Syndrome, indeed.

Michael Miller Jr., Philadelphia

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