Plastering your name or face onto a building does not make it yours. More importantly, it does not make it right. You simply cannot buy an authentic legacy. A true legacy is measured by a person’s lasting impact—the moral, cultural, and emotional imprint they leave behind through their actions, values, and contributions. It is built on the positive changes they inspire, not the material wealth they amass.
Yet, President Trump is treating our nation’s capital like a personal real estate portfolio, slapping his name and likeness all over Washington, D.C. His version of a legacy belongs in a Last Will and Testament: a physical bequest of property left to a public that never asked for it. Except his “gift” to the American people is just his own face and brand. While a deeper dive into his character, values, and actions is a topic for a future post, today I want to focus on the numbers and the facts: how President Trump has undertaken a massive, unprecedented push to brand the federal government during his second term.
🏛️ The Giant Banners in Washington, D.C.
Giant, three-story-tall banners featuring Donald Trump’s face have been hung on multiple major federal agency buildings in Washington, D.C. These massive displays, often measuring at least 30 feet tall, have been heavily criticized for mimicking authoritarian-style branding
- The Department of Justice: A banner hung on Pennsylvania Avenue featuring Trump’s face alongside the slogan “Make America Safe Again.”
- The Department of Labor: A banner pairing his image with President Theodore Roosevelt under the slogan “American Workers First.”
- The Department of the Interior: Three-story banners placed at the main entrance showing Trump alongside President George Washington, labeled “America First.”
- The Department of Agriculture: A temporary banner paired Trump with President Abraham Lincoln reading “Growing America Since 1862.”
📛 Federal Branding: Existing vs. Proposed Legacy Projects
Beyond building banners, the administration has actively attached his name and likeness to numerous public and government entities.
Category
Completed / Existing Implementations
Proposed / Unrealized Ambitions
Monuments / Structures
✔️East Wing demolished in 2025. New East Wing / Private Ballroom yet to be constructed.
✔️Mount Rushmore addition.
✔️A 250-ft. Triumphal Arch near Lincoln Memorial.
Government Programs
✔️TrumpRx.gov
(Prescription discount website).
✔️Trump Accounts
($1,000 government seed deposit for investing, for eligible children).
✔️Trump Gold Card
(Federal immigration and investor visa program. It allows high-net-worth individuals and corporations to obtain legal permanent U.S. residency in exchange for substantial financial contributions to the U.S. government.)
Public Items
✔️“America the Beautiful” National Parks Annual Passes.
(The passes now bear a portrait of Trump, instead of the traditional use of nature photography).
✔️Multi-agency identification badges.
Military / Transit
✔️First sitting president to place his signature on U.S. paper currency.
✔️“Trump-Class” battleships planned.
✔️The Boeing F-47 is an American sixth-generation air superiority fighter being developed for the U.S. Air Force under the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. The “47” designation pays tribute to the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and President Trump as the 47th President.
✔️*Broad transportation infrastructure naming rights.
(*See details in next section).
*Broad Transportation And Infrastructure Naming Rights
Funding Negotiations & Hub Renaming Proposals: Trump offered to unfreeze $16 billion in federal funding for the Gateway Hudson River rail tunnel project on the condition that Washington Dulles International Airport and New York’s Penn Station were renamed in his honor. The offer was rejected by Senate leadership.
Interstate Proposals: Federal lawmakers introduced legislation to designate a nearly 1,800-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 287 (from the Texas Gulf Coast to the Canadian border) as Interstate 47, or the “Trump Interstate”.
State-Level Highway Designations: Multiple state governments have officially renamed segments of roadways. For example, Florida enacted a law designating all 124 miles of State Road 80 as “President Donald J. Trump Highway”.
Bridge Renaming: State and federal officials officially dedicated a newly constructed Interstate 40 bridge over the French Broad River in Dandridge, Tennessee, as the “President Donald J. Trump Bridge”.
To track ongoing infrastructure negotiations, refer to the United States Department of Transportation for updates on federal funding allocations and project statuses.
⚠️ Re-branding Attempts / Failures
On December 3, 2025, the exterior of the United States Institute of Peace was adorned with additional lettering renaming the facility to the Donald J. Trump United States Institute of Peace.
On December 19, 2025, Trump’s name was added to the Kennedy Center. President Trump’s attempt to rebrand the national memorial as the “Trump-Kennedy Center” was blocked in late May 2026 by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper. The judge ruled the board’s vote illegal, declaring that because Congress originally named the building for President John F. Kennedy, only Congress has the authority to alter it. Following the ruling and subsequent rejected appeals, workers removed Trump’s name from the physical facade, website, and promotional materials in mid-June 2026. The judge also struck down the board’s plan to close the Washington venue for a two-year renovation.
President Donald Trump attempted to rename Washington Dulles International Airport and New York’s Penn Station in his honor by conditioning a $16.1 billion release of federal funds for the Gateway rail tunnel project on the renamings. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rejected the demand.
President Donald Trump has pushed to have the Washington Commanders‘ new $3.7 billion stadium on the RFK campus named after him, while also leveraging federal influence to demand the team revert to its previous name.
Scholars and political observers describe Donald Trump’s political base as a classic cult of personality, characterized by unwavering loyalty to the man rather than a traditional political platform. This phenomenon is driven by a combination of factors and specific actions.
Mythologized Persona: Trump has cultivated a superhuman, omnipresent persona. This trend has expanded into federal governance, with his name and face heavily tied to government programs, national park passes, and federal buildings in Washington, D.C.
Psychological Appeal: Political psychologists and historians note that his anti-establishment rhetoric and defiance of social norms resonate strongly with followers who feel marginalized. His base exhibits high conscientiousness but lower openness to new experiences, often relying on an “us versus them” mentality and the leader’s strong authority.
Scholarly Comparisons: Observers—including historians like Ruth Ben-Ghiat—liken his tactics to historical autocrats, where the leader’s image and aesthetic must be everywhere, and policy is fundamentally built on personal allegiance rather than ideology.
The Ever Present Likeness Of Trump: An analysis of the Washington D.C. banners, explicitly tied the omnipresence of Trump’s face to authoritarian branding tendencies used to forcefully project power over the federal agencies.
💯 My Two Cents Worth
I am not part of the Cult of Trump. I did not vote for him in either election. However, I deeply respect the Office of the Presidency, which makes our current reality so difficult to accept. Genuine support and loyalty to the individual holding the office has become a foreign concept to me.
Long-held presidential traditions have been completely dismissed. Walk through the West Wing, and you will find a self-made Presidential Walk of Fame where past presidents are openly mocked on bronze plaques. President Biden is denied a traditional portrait entirely, represented instead by a cynical image of an autopen. This petty exhibit is what our current leader proudly shows off to visiting foreign dignitaries.
Meanwhile, our official government website now hosts a taxpayer-funded “Media Offenders” black list, keeping a running tally of journalists who dare to report critically. Isn’t it great to see your tax dollars at work in real time? When you consider his open praise for the authoritarian control wielded by leaders in Russia, China, and North Korea, it is a very short leap to understand where he got the idea to drape three-story banners of his own face across Washington, D.C.
I fundamentally do not understand how roughly half of the voting population is okay with this. They seem entirely indifferent to the lies, the petty name-calling, the recess-mentality bullying, and the obnoxious vanity of our current leader. There are countless other rabbit holes I could go down, but the bottom line is clear:
- I do not want to see his face billowing on a federal building banner.
- I do not want his face staring back at me from my national park pass.
- I will not buy his commemorative coin, nor will I sign up for his branded prescription drug discount.
Instead of building monuments to himself, he needs to fix the Reflecting Pool and halt the destruction of the East Wing. He needs to stop defacing historic sites and rewriting American history. On the world stage, he must bring military campaigns like Operation Epic Fury to a definitive end and stop burning through massive resources abroad.
It is time to focus on our own economy, tackle pressing affordability issues, get ICE under control, and stop using the U.S. Justice Department as a personal legal team. To bring this back to where I started: Donald Trump needs to stop putting his name and face on everything.
We live in the United States of America. Not Russia, not China, and not North Korea.
A Note on Community Moderation: I welcome civil debate and differing perspectives on the points raised above. However, dehumanizing language, personal attacks, misinformation, or off-topic deflections will be removed. Let’s focus on the ideas in this post, not insults or distractions.
Copyright © 2009-2026 Maria Appleby for Maria’s Musings: Tales My Heart Tells. All Rights Reserved.
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