On Trump’s monumental hunger

During the Second World War, the United States sought to preserve Europe’s cultural landmarks from destruction. They created a special unit to follow the front line and save cathedrals, paintings and sculptures from being damaged and restore looted art to its rightful owners. Dramatized by a George Clooney movie (The Monuments Men), they exhibited a reverence for history and art.

Today, the U.S. has a new Monuments Man. His name is U.S. President Donald Trump. He has monumental reverence only for himself. Like any true narcissist, he requires ever-increasing tribute in the form of personal glorification and worship. And, as it turns out, monuments.

The real estate mogul turned president has asserted control over the most valuable political real estate in his country — Washington, D.C. He wasted no time in remaking the seat of American democracy in his own image. In the first year of his second presidency, he has had banners emblazoned with his face hung from government buildings, redecorated the Oval Office with a Mar-a-Lago vibe, gold and gilt, renamed the Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts to the Trump-Kennedy Centre, bulldozed the East Wing of the White House to build a grotesquely oversized ballroom without official approvals, and even instructed the U.S. Mint to forge a new US$1 gold coin featuring his profile — a living, not a dead president — to mark America’s 250th birthday.

But that’s small beer compared to the monument he most wants: the “Arc de Trump.” Taller than the U.S. Capitol Building, twice the height of the Lincoln Memorial, and a full 100 feet higher than the world-famous Arc de Triomphe in Paris, Trump’s 250-foot Triumphal Arch was given approval to proceed by his hand-picked Commission of Fine Arts. It would be built on a plot of land across the Potomac River from the White House and serve as a gateway to Arlington Cemetery, the official gravesite and resting place for America’s military heroes and national figures such as former president John F. Kennedy.

Before Trump, no American citizen could even contemplate the presumptuousness of a president using high office for high buildings. High crimes and misdemeanours were the only standard that mattered and that led to impeachment. Not now.

The most self-absorbed president in history, Trump wants far more than just being remembered. He wants to ensure he is never forgotten. Lincoln and Jefferson have their memorials; Trump wants his. Theirs were built by a grateful nation decades after they served in office and died. This president is taking no chances. He is building his monuments before he dies, while in office.

Just like another autocrat, Hungary’s Viktor Orban. His governing party’s slogan is as close to cultural Trumpism as you can get. “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” No wonder Vice-President JD Vance flew to Budapest to campaign for him.

During his 15 years in power, Orban literally went on a monument-building spree using state money to finance statues, plaques and celebrations to advance his Fidesz party’s narrative of Hungary’s cultural and religious identity at the expense of historical accuracy and memory. Over 2,000 were built. Nothing was above — or beneath — revision. Two world wars, the Holocaust and Hungarians’ involvement, as well as the 1956 revolution. All were recast as heroic depictions of Hungarian nationalism and struggle against enemies, foreign and domestic, to regain freedom. He was MAGA before MAGA.

In the end, it didn’t stick. Orban lost decisively to his pro-democracy opponent in elections the other week. One reason he lost is that, like any classic autocrat, he cashed in personally. He built a mansion for himself on his family estate with public money that included a palm garden, a heated driveway and even a petting zoo. Ordinary Hungarians were understandably outraged.

Trump doesn’t need public funds to build his mansion. It already exists at Mar-a-Lago. But he has no qualms about using public money to help pay for it by hosting government events and meetings there, golfing every weekend, not to mention stashing the odd top-secret document in its bathrooms.

While Trump is certainly not averse to private enrichment in office, his real goal is public veneration and aggrandizement. His avaricious appetite here is, well, monumental. Nothing has escaped his gilded gaze. Initial attempts to rename Penn Station and Dulles Airport after himself came to nought, for now.

“No Kings” is the name of the U.S. national protest movement calling attention to Trump’s executive overreach and abuse of presidential powers. The anti-monarchical phrase is deliberate. It hearkens back to revolutionary America when 13 disparate colonies united as one state to overthrow Britain’s King George III.

An unimpressed Trump would no doubt consider him a “loser” for having lost the country he now leads. But in truth, he has a soft spot for monarchs, probably because he would like to be one. Two state visits to the United Kingdom were personal highlights for him. And, next week, he welcomes King Charles to Washington, D.C., for his state visit to mark 250 years of American independence.

This will be the first royal visit to the U.S. in almost 20 years. Expect Trump to make the most of it. It will be a “yuge” boost to his ego.

Monumental, even.

David McLaughlin is a former clerk of the executive council and cabinet secretary in the Manitoba government.