What’s in a name? Trump’s vainglorious branding stunts point to underlying phobia |
In April 2018, during his first term as US president, Donald Trump visited George Washington’s former residence and plantation at Mount Vernon in Virginia with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron.
A year later, US news site Politico reported a telling anecdote from the guided tour, citing three sources briefed on the event. Washington, Trump had said, should have stuck his name on the historic compound.
President Donald Trump last week after announcing a new class of warship – named after himself.Credit: AP
“If he was smart, he would’ve put his name on it,” Trump reportedly said. “You’ve got to put your name on stuff or no one remembers you.”
It certainly tracks as something the brash businessman, Apprentice star and marketing enthusiast might say. And now in his second term, with the political history books beckoning, Trump is acting on that impulse by whacking his own name on pretty much anything he can find.
He has created Trump Accounts for newborns, renamed the US Institute of Peace the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, hung a banner of his face outside the Department of Agriculture,........