Trumpmenbashi Station, Trumpmenbashi Airport, Etc.

I am pre-writing today's blog post on the afternoon of Friday February 6 because I have a busy weekend planned. By the time this essay goes live, for all I know the U.S. will be at war with Iran, a deal will have been worked out with Iran whereby sanctions are lifted in exchange for a Trump-branded Tehran casino, or, because nothing makes any sense anymore, both. Meanwhile, my subject isn't even the thing that would cause the most outrage if done by any other president in history to hit the news today.

That dishonor belongs to Trump's social media post of a racist video depiction of the Obamas and his almost contrition. As The NY Times reported: "The decision to delete the link from his social media site was an unusual walk-back by Mr. Trump, whose own press secretary just hours earlier had brushed off criticism of the video as 'fake outrage' and made no attempt to distance the president from it."

I'll focus today on this revelation:

The Trump administration has sought to pressure Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, to help name New York’s Penn Station and Washington Dulles International Airport after President Trump in exchange for releasing billions of dollars he has frozen for a rail tunnel under the Hudson River.

Earlier today, Federal District Court Judge Vargas (SDNY) temporarily enjoined the Trump administration to release the funds, finding that New York and New Jersey are likely to succeed on the merits of their Administrative Procedure Act claim and suffer irreparable injury if the withholding continues. That's good news, but this is only a very preliminary holding. Indeed, it's not even a preliminary injunction. It's only a temporary restraining order pending further proceedings to determine whether to issue a preliminary injunction. Judge Vargas herself could reverse it later, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit could do so if she does not, or, the Supreme Court could eventually allow the withholding of the funds to stand. 

Here's my advice to Senator Schumer in the event that Judge Vargas's very preliminary ruling does not hold up: Do it, Chuck! First of all, Dulles is in Virginia, so no skin off your teeth as a New Yorker. Second, most people will continue to refer to Penn Station as Penn Station, regardless of the signage.

Don't believe me? Mayor Fiorello La Guardia renamed 6th Avenue the "Avenue of the Americas" in 1945. I grew up in the NYC area. I lived there as an adult in the 1990s and 2000s. I never heard anyone call the avenue between 5th Avenue and 7th Avenue (not Fashion Avenue) anything other than 6th Avenue.

Meanwhile, if the Trump name somehow sticks to Penn Station and people start to actually use it, we can always change it back or to something else. Doing so might require an act of Congress if the original name change is in a federal statute, but Trump won't be president forever, and in a future worth inhabiting, revulsion with our current era will be sufficient to obtain legislation to deTrumpify the country.

Suppose, however, that an act of Congress removing the Trump name does not come quickly enough. Could anything be done? Sure.

From time to time, I've been peripherally involved in higher education fundraising. Naming opportunities are fundraising opportunities, but good development officers don't allow the fact that something is already named for someone to stop them from making their pitch.

For example, suppose that you are the dean of the Hamnet University Law School. Wealthy alum Josh Macbeth wants to give $75 million but only if he can rename the school for himself. Easy! You are now the dean of Macbeth Law School at Hamnet University.

But what if you're the dean of the Humperdink Law School at Guildenstern University? Well, to begin, maybe there are no surviving members of the Humperdink family who would complain if, in exchange for a sufficiently large gift from Emily Rosencrantz you rename the law school for her. In some jurisdictions, the Attorney General might have authority to sue to keep the Humperdink name, but especially if the large gift would benefit the state, the AG might not bother. Recent examples of schools shedding names based on the original benefactor's or honoree's associations with slavery are instructive in this regard.

In any event, even if the name sticks, indeed, even if the deal requires the erection of a 60-foot high statue of Trump at the entrance to Penn Trump Station, we're talking about a lot of money for a vital infrastructure project. Do it, Chuck.

Finally, I will offer a word about the character of a person who, without an iota of shame or embarrassment, would use commuters as hostages in order to glorify himself by seeing his name everywhere. Napoleon III at least had sufficient taste only to put his signature "N" on new bridges. To find a dictator with the kind of self-regard as Trump, one must look to the personality cult of Saparmurat Niyazov, the self-proclaimed Turkmenbashi (great leader of the Turkmen). There is no evidence that Trump has studied the reign of Turkmenbashi, but his leadership style is eerily similar.