History Has Left The Building

Trump isn’t preserving America; he’s rebranding it, one gold-plated illusion at a time. History erased, monuments renamed, and a nation rebuilt in the image of its showman-in-chief.

Guest article by Michael Cohen. Follow him on Substack for more by clicking here.

The East Wing of the White House

Donald Trump has always believed that history is a marketing problem.
He doesn’t study it. He doesn’t honor it. He edits it. History, to Trump, is like a lease agreement written by someone else—something to renegotiate, repaint, and stamp with his own logo. He doesn’t believe in history any more than he believes in science, because both demand something he’s never possessed: humility. And humility doesn’t build empires; it builds libraries, and he’s never cared much for those either.

We have all watched him do this to New York.

He rebranded the city as if it were his personal stage. Every skyline shot needed his name in gold: Trump Tower. Trump Plaza. Trump World. Trump Palace. Even the Wollman Rink—Central Park’s public skating rink—wasn’t immune. He slapped “Trump Rink” across it like it was a trophy. Never mind that it wasn’t his to name. That was always his genius and his grift rolled into one: take something that belongs to the public, stamp your name on it, and convince everyone it’s yours—and has always been yours.

That’s what he’s doing to America right now.

While the country is fixated on his handling of government—his creeping takeover of the legislative branch, his victories in court, the judges who bend to his will—Trump is performing the greatest brand overhaul in modern history. The Oregon decision permitting his administration to deploy federal troops to Portland wasn’t just a power move. It was a demonstration of control. He’s rewriting not just the law but the story of who gets to enforce it.

Meanwhile, like any master illusionist, he knows the trick is to make us look the other way.

We’re distracted by the chaos: tariffs, foreign standoffs, government shutdowns, skyrocketing prices. We’re watching the noise. And while we’re watching, he’s quietly changing the scenery. Literally.

The White House is no longer the people’s house; it’s his newest development. Construction crews are busy reshaping it in his image. There’s the “Presidential Walk of Fame” he recently unveiled along the West Wing colonnade, featuring plaques for presidents he deems worthy of honor. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s plaque is the largest. Nearby, demolition has already begun on parts of the East Wing to make room for a new $250 million ballroom—a vanity project he describes as “the most beautiful ballroom in the world.” I can almost hear him saying it, chin tilted up, basking in the glow of his own reflection.

Even the Rose Garden—once a space of quiet dignity and history—has been flattened and realigned: more symmetrical, more sterile. Like everything Trump touches, it’s been “modernized,” which in his vocabulary means made to look expensive and soulless.

But it doesn’t stop at the White House.

Across from the Lincoln Memorial, he’s planning the Arc de Trump—a marble monument to “250 years of American greatness.” The name alone tells you everything. It’s a triumphal arch meant to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary next year. Privately funded by his donors, it will stand as a monument not to democracy, but to dominance. The irony of building it within view of Lincoln—a man who preserved the Union—is almost too hard to imagine.

And then there’s H.R. 792, a bill that sounds like parody but is entirely real. Introduced by Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, it directs the Secretary of the Interior to arrange for the carving of Donald Trump’s figure onto Mount Rushmore. Let that sink in. We’ve gone from the man who once renamed Wollman Rink to “Trump Rink” to a man now seeking to engrave his face into the granite beside Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln.

If that isn’t the ultimate act of rebranding, I don’t know what is.

To Trump, that’s legacy. To the rest of us, it’s vandalism—national narcissism carved into stone.

And then there’s the cultural annexation: Congressman Bob Onder’s “Make Entertainment Great Again Act.” On the surface, it’s a harmless piece of performative patriotism. But buried in the bill is its real purpose—to rename the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts the Donald J. Trump Center for the Performing Arts. The irony is staggering. Kennedy inspired Americans to serve their country. Trump inspires them to serve his brand. Since taking control of the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees, the idea of renaming it has gone from outlandish to likely. The blueprint is there.

That’s how rebranding works. You normalize the absurd one plaque at a time.
Piece by piece, he’s replacing the architecture of democracy with the architecture of self. These aren’t random acts of ego; they’re deliberate steps in rewriting what America means. He’s betting that people won’t remember who built what or why—just whose name is on it. That’s how he always operated. He didn’t build every tower with his name on it, but he made damn sure you thought he did.

He’s turning history into a construction site.

Every new marble plaque, every renamed building, every proposed monument is a brick in the wall of revisionism. For Trump, permanence is power. Once his name is etched in stone, it’s no longer self-promotion; it’s history.

This is how a brand becomes a nation.

The Founders believed in legacy through principle. Trump believes in legacy through signage. He doesn’t want to be remembered for what he did. He wants to be remembered because you can’t escape his name when you walk through the capital, turn on the TV, or take a family photo at Mount Rushmore.

And the most disturbing part? It’s working.

Every news cycle that covers his latest “renovation,” every debate over the size of his face on a mountain, feeds the brand. It’s not chaos; it’s content. America isn’t being governed. It’s being remodeled for syndication.

I learned a long time ago that for Trump, there’s no difference between legacy and advertising. Both are about control. Both depend on repetition. Both require belief.

He’s not just making America great again. He’s making it Trump again.

And when the dust settles, when the paint dries, when the signs go up and the statues gleam, the country won’t just bear his name. It’ll bear his reflection.
Because Donald Trump doesn’t live in history; he builds over it.

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