Wannabe Dictator Gets Scraped Off a Wall

Donald Trump’s dictatorial hopes just got scraped off a wall, literally. Yesterday, on orders from a federal court, crews began removing his name from the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center in Washington, DC, which the Trump regime had illegally sought to rename as the Trump-Kennedy Center.

Dictators and tyrants like to put their names and faces on things in order to appear all-powerful and larger than life. The same is true of Donald Trump, who has become increasingly obsessed with imposing his personal brand on the United States.

Trump has been in a frenzy to impose his stamp on things. He has put his own face on banners draped from federal buildings and on annual National Park passes (alongside the face of George Washington). There are proposals to feature his scowling visage on a $1 commemorative coin and a $250 bill. He emblazoned his name and face on a “Gold Card” visa. He wants to rename Washington Dulles Airport and New York Penn Station after himself, and he also seeks to honor himself with a new class of Navy battleships.

“The leader must be everywhere, his face must be everywhere, his name must be everywhere, and his aesthetic, his taste must be reflected in buildings, in the people around him,” said Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. “The autocrat wants to remake the world in his own image.”

But there’s bad news for our brand-obsessed aspiring tyrant. It’s called the law.

In May, a federal judge ordered the Trump regime to remove his name from the Kennedy Center. That’s because federal law states that the center can only be renamed through Congressional action. The Trump regime appealed the judge’s ruling, but an appeals court upheld it and ordered it removed by 12 p.m. Eastern today.

It was a high noon showdown, and Trump lost. He blinked. A real tyrant would have deployed the military to guard the wall or sent in a squad of masked goons—or threatened the judges. Instead, the Department of Justice confirmed that Trump’s name had been erased from the wall. Workers had erected a tarp to hide Trump’s shame from the media cameras, but his name came down.

The autocrat needs to be everywhere to prove his power. Trump couldn’t keep his name on a wall. Lawsuit by lawsuit, vote by vote, scrape by scrape, that’s how these things end.