U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote in his opinion that the 1964 statute that led to the creation of the Kennedy Center makes “crystal clear” that the center is to be named for President John F. Kennedy only. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” the judge wrote.
In December of last year, the center’s board voted to change its name to the “Trump Kennedy Center.” Soon after the vote, 18 new letters were added to the building’s facade in front of Kennedy’s name to read: “The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” The change was also reflected and on the website and promotional materials for events. When White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the change on social media, she said it was “because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building.”
No no no no no. That’s not how that works. It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t ever work that way. The Golden Gate Bridge is always being painted (because corrosion is always happening in one spot or another) but its name is still The Golden Gate Bridge. Notre Dame de Paris got a complete makeover after the fire, but its name did not switch to Notre Dame Édouard Phillippe.
That’s all the more true when the original name is the name in order to commemorate a particular person. Note that even Trump hasn’t (as far as I know) tried to rename the Lincoln Memorial the Lincoln and Trump Memorial, despite having told people to sweep up the cigarette butts in a more timely fashion.
There’s also of course the fact that both Lincoln and Kennedy were murdered on the job, and that’s why the Memorial and the Center exist. Trump has not been murdered on the job, so he doesn’t get a Memorial and he doesn’t get to glue himself to an existing memorial building.
Enough already.
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