Trump’s Latest—Erasing Camelot One Memorial at a Time
Donald Trump has turned legacy into a game of Monopoly: buy the brand, flip it, rename the place, then sell the nostalgia back to the public as a MAGA souvenir. Lately his crosshairs have been trained on the Kennedys — not for their ideas, but for the political capital their name still generates. The move is surgical: place a controversial Kennedy in a high-profile seat, gut or repurpose Kennedy-era spaces, and watch the brand’s reverence fray.
Let’s start with the staffing headline: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., once the family’s maverick outsider and long-time vaccine skeptic, is now wearing the imprimatur of the federal government as HHS secretary. That confirmation — narrow, contentious, and historic for reasons none of us wanted — handed a Kennedy the levers of health policy at a moment when public trust in institutions is already frayed. That matters. It changes the narrative from “Kennedys as civic conscience” to “Kennedys as political props.”
But personnel is only Act One. The administration’s cultural moves have looked like a conscious campaign to repurpose physical symbols of Kennedy-era civic memory. The Kennedy Center — the national performing arts center built as a living memorial to JFK’s belief in the arts as public life — has been subject to leadership shake-ups and interventions that critics say are political and performative. Artists and organizations have protested and even relocated performances in response. This is not just about programming; it’s about what a nation keeps sacred.
Meanwhile, the White House grounds themselves have been refashioned in ways that read like a literal rewriting of memory. Reports of major renovations to the Rose Garden and other East Wing alterations have outraged preservationists and casual observers alike — a physical remaking that severs the visible ties to the Kennedy-era redesigns and the aesthetic legacy that came with them. When you pave over a lawn that generations recognized as a place for presidential rhetoric and ceremony, you erase not just grass but a set of civic rituals.
Why does any of this matter beyond aesthetics and family feuds? Because symbols teach us what’s possible. The Kennedys historically symbolized public service, aspiration, even a messy, complicated idea of national aspiration. Trump’s pattern here is to take a symbol that means unity for many and turn it into a wedge. Install a controversial Kennedy in a cabinet seat; shake up the Kennedy Center leadership so it bows to political whims; remodel the Rose Garden so it no longer resembles the setting of civic gravitas — and you’re left with a public memory that’s been blurred on purpose.
It’s political strategy by attrition: don’t argue people out of loving the Kennedys, make them unsure whether the Kennedys still represent something they want to defend. Confusion is persuasion’s quieter cousin — and it’s effective.
There’s also a performative element for supporters: repurposed spaces and names become trophies in a culture-war cabinet — a way to say, loudly, “We own the narrative now.” That’s why renaming theaters, reassigning boards, and appointing headline-grabbing figures matter. It’s not governance; it’s branding. And branding corrodes the norms that let a pluralistic democracy function.
So where does that leave us? If you care about public institutions that outlast an administration’s headlines, this is a moment for attention. Watch who’s appointed, what boards are restructured, which cultural institutions lose donors or performers — and remember that preserving civic memory isn’t nostalgia; it’s defense work. Stay skeptical of theatrics dressed as policy, and keep insisting that legacy means more than a name on a plaque.
Stay awake. Stay loud. Stay mindful.
Julie Bolejack, MBA
