There was no shortage of bad news to cover in 2025. But I want to end the year by looking to the future and focusing on something more joyous: detrumpification. I spent most of this year—indeed, most of this last decade—thinking about one man. Now, for just a moment, I want to think about what comes after him.

One day, likely by January 20, 2029, Donald Trump will no longer be the president of the United States. The Constitution will bar him from seeking a third term, no matter what nonsense Alan Dershowitz plans to soon publish. It is highly probable that Trump will be replaced by a new Democratic president. America’s economic, social, and moral decline in just the last 11 months makes it unlikely that his successor will win the most votes in 2028.

That new president, whoever they happen to be, will face countless choices about how to rebuild after Trump’s second term. Some things simply can’t be undone. The United States will likely never recover the full trust of our allies in Europe and Asia, who now know that another Trump is always at most four years away. Confidence in the rule of law in this country will remain shaken for generations, as will our reputation as a home for immigrants and a citadel of democratic and constitutional government.

Other damage will be repairable, but only with time and effort. Federal agencies will need to rehire thousands of civil servants to replace those purged by figures like Elon Musk and Russell Vought. Institutional knowledge at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and more will need to be replenished. Funding for academic and scientific research will need to resume. There will be thousands of green-card applications to approve and hundreds of citizenship ceremonies to hold. Criminal investigations will need to be opened, and antitrust litigation must begin again.

For now I want to focus on the less impactful but highly symbolic aspects of detrumpification. It will not be enough to simply reverse Trump’s policies or unwind his executive orders when a new Democratic president takes office. The next administration must commit itself in addition to purging the aesthetic rot of Trump’s second term from our national life. Detrumpification must be celebrated as an act of victory and an exercise in joy.

Take, for example, Trump’s campaign against the Kennedy Center. Congress created the cultural center in Washington, D.C., in 1958 and designated it by law as a “living memorial” for John F. Kennedy after his assassination in 1963. The famed stages and theaters along the Potomac have hosted some of the greatest artists from the United States and from around the world.

Trump has spent most of 2025 desecrating the place. First he purged most of the board that governs the institution. Then he replaced its members with pliable ideologues and........

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