Naming Things After Dear Leader
Now an airport.
ABC News reports: Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill to rename Palm Beach airport after Trump.
Palm Beach International Airport, which President Donald Trump flies in and out of when heading to his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, is likely set to be renamed in his honor.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Monday, renaming it the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
According to a release from DeSantis’ office, the governor signed a bill from the legislature related to “Commercial Service Airports.” That bill, which passed the Florida House and Senate in February, includes the provision that “‘Palm Beach International Airport,’ shall be renamed as the ‘President Donald J. Trump International Airport,’ subject to approval of the Federal Aviation Administration” and, per the bill, rights agreements.
The law is set to go into effect on July 1, according to the state legislature.
Taken in the abstract, naming an airport after a president is relatively normal. After all, we have JFK in New York and Reagan National in DC, to name but two. However, I hasten to add: Kennedy had to be assassinated to get an airport named after him, and Reagan had to wait almost a decade for his honor. George H. W. Bush, I would note, did not have to wait quite as long for Houston to rename its airport in his honor (here’s a list of all of them).
These days, I guess waiting to be at least out of office is passé.
Even before the Trumpification of America, I was starting to sour on naming things after people. Did we learn nothing about all the Confederate names? Recent revelations about César Chávez underscore the point. And from a democratic values point of view, the valorization of mere politicians, especially those who have done nothing extraordinary, is problematic and distasteful.
There is an argument to be made about building a shared, national mythos that would honor the Founders and people like Lincoln. And if we are going to venerate, wait a bit, shall we? I can understand the argument for the FDR memorial, but it wasn’t dedicated until over 50 years after his death. Again, all of this, to include normative debates about who does, and does not, deserve such honors, is a separate issue.
But let’s be clear: naming things after a sitting president is a way to unhealthily elevate a politician. It is a source of power to be treated in such a manner, and it also has the effect of inflating the ego and self-importance of the officeholder in question. Again, it is the kind of thing we see in authoritarian government, especially of the more petty personalistic type, rather than in healthy democracies.
Not to put too fine a point on it, given that No Kings was this weekend, but this is the kind of thing one does for a monarch, both as a symbol of their power, but also because part of the monarch’s job is to be a symbolic representation of the nation. While it is true that the US President is the head of state, he is a transitory figure who is not vested in being a national symbol.
Trump, however, wants to be treated like a monarch. He wants to be honored now and to be seen as a gold-plated symbol of America.
This is neither in the spirit of democracy nor is it healthy for the president to be this self-centered.
The NYT has a list of Everything With Trump’s Name, Likeness and Signature. While I have covered some of this, I haven’t noted it all. It is a pretty stunning list.
Again: presidents are transitory. They are not living symbols of the country. This is why we have long had a combination of legal and tradition-based prohibitions against things like sitting (or even living) presidents’ faces on coins and stamps, or their names on buildings.
All of this is an assault on our prevailing political culture and is an unhealthy way in which our politics are deeply presidentialized.
Maybe that Florida airport could in a few years change its name to something less distasteful, like Cesspit Crapbag Airport.
Don’t worry. I am sure the Federal Aviation Administration will slow walk this out of a keen sense of propriety.
Really, if they wait a couple of years, they can reuse the lettering from the Kennedy Center.
[I’ll show myself out.]
It may have taken a decade after his presidency to name Reagan National, but it was in his lifetime (1911-2004). This naming business is another thing we can blame on GOPs and their billionaire supporters. The convention against naming things after living politicians pretty much held until a well funded activist group went around the country lobbying to name things after Reagan as soon as he was out of office. I guess it’s better, actually, that they waste their money on vanity projects.
This renaming included in my then home, Cincinnati, the Ronald Reagan Cross County Highway (renamed 1993). The Reagan Cross County didn’t actually cross the county. Appropriately, it stopped short of pulling eminent domain in the upper class suburbs.
The Navy pulled the neat trick. They named a carrier after HW Bush, while W was in office. Since it would invariably be called “USS Bush” or “the Bush” they could pretend to avoid naming after a serving prez while sucking up to a serving prez.
Apparently we need a presidential character test to weed out those who are unfit for office, including profoundly narcissistic or (bonus: and) unethically corrupt people. (I know, this is not a practical idea, but so much needs fixing in the post-Trump era.)
I would be willing to name a nuclear waste dump after Trump.