© Luc Nadeau
Trumpington D.C. political cartoon
This article is part of a monthly series of articles on corruption focusing on President Trump's second term in office. This one is about his egomania, dictatorial ambitions and the havoc that these traits are unleashing on Washington, DC.
Trump has long been into self-glorification. The hotels, golf courses, a “university” (which wasn’t in fact a university), vodka, steaks and bankrupt casinos bearing his name attest to that. His penchant for naming things after himself did not stop when he took office, with a host of Trump merch—from bibles to guitars—now available for purchase.
In 2025, Trump’s egotism and wannabe dictatorial behavior have reached a new level in debasing America’s capital and threatening its democracy. The most egregious examples of the damage wrought by the combination of these personality traits include:
His actions related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021
The most anti-American of all of Trump’s assaults on democracy in the United States is his refusal to admit that he lost the 2020 election. Even after multiple failures to overturn state election results in state courts, Trump was not ready to give up on his attempt to retain the presidency after Biden beat him in the election. As reported by PBS, “The House Jan. 6 committee’s final report asserts that Donald Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol.”
One of the traits of an over-the-top egotist is to never admit that you are wrong. Accordingly, as reported by Wikipedia, “[During] the first day of his second term Trump granted blanket clemency to all people, nearly 1,600, convicted of or awaiting trial or sentencing for offenses related to the January 6 United States Capitol attack.” Through these pardons, he effectively exonerated himself from any wrongdoing in that “multi-part conspiracy.”
Concentrating power in the executive branch of the federal government
Trump has done this in two ways:
- Appointing three conservative Supreme Court Justices during his first term, thus giving the Court a 6-3 conservative majority that has enabled him to expand his presidential power (in particular, the Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States increasing presidential immunity), and through numerous other cases that have upset the balance of power between the President and Congress; and
- Strong-arming a weak-kneed, Republican-dominated Congress. Even without the kowtowing of the Supreme Court to Trump, the Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate have given the MAGA president just about everything he wants so far, often in fear of retribution if they don’t. The Big Ugly Bill is a prime example of this timidity.
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Takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
By federal law, the U.S. president appoints the board of trustees for the Kennedy Center, who in turn select the organization's president and executive director. On February 10, 2025, only a month into his presidency, Trump flipped the script on this procedure. According to an article in the New York Times published that day,
“President Trump announced in a post on social media Monday that he was appointing Richard Grenell as the “interim executive director” of the Kennedy Center in Washington. Mr. Grenell, who was Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Germany during the first Trump administration, is one of his most fiercely loyal apparatchiks.”
“The president wrote that Mr. Grenell ‘shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture’ and would be overseeing ‘daily operations’ to ensure there was no more ‘ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA.’”
How has this “GOLDEN AGE” worked out so far? According to an early November article in the New York Times entitled The Kennedy Center Crackup, “Audiences are staying away. Internal sales figures … showed ticket sales down by about 50 percent from the same period last year … Dozens of employees . . . have been fired or quit. Outsiders with few obvious qualifications aside from party loyalty were handed top jobs. The center’s head of human resources estimated that staffing was down 30 percent from before Mr. Trump took over.”
The “whitewashing” of the Smithsonian Institution
In March 2025, President Trump issued an executive order, "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," which called for a comprehensive review of Smithsonian exhibits and materials. The administration requested that content align with its interpretation of U.S. history, which it claims should emphasize national “greatness” and “brightness” rather than what it considers an overemphasis on negative aspects like slavery and racism.
The destruction of the East Wing of the White House to make way for “a big beautiful ballroom”
A Yahoo/YouGov survey conducted in late October indicated that “Americans disapprove of Trump’s White House ballroom project—and East Wing demolition—by more than [a] 2-to-1 margin.” But this dramatically negative reaction occurred after the damage was done.
The stage was set for this demolition/abomination project in early July, when, according to an Axios headline, “Trump deputies take over powerful [National Capital Planning Commission].” According to an NPR article published in late October, this commission is “tasked with approving major renovations and construction projects on federal grounds in Washington, D.C.” He is also financing the project with private “donations” from wealthy individuals and corporations to the tune of $300-$350 million. Thus, Trump will likely have free reign in designing the big ugly ballroom, which will be about twice the size of the rest of the White House.
The military occupation of the city
As reported in Al Jazeera News, On August 11, Trump “announced that he is temporarily taking control of the Washington, DC, police department, while deploying 800 National Guard troops to the city. Trump said his actions are needed to “rescue” the US capital from a surge in crime.” In fact, violent crime in the nation’s capital has been declining since 2023. According to a November 20 CBS News article “A federal judge ruled … that President Trump's months-long deployment of thousands of National Guard forces to the streets of Washington, D.C., violates federal law.”
Seeking damages for “violations of his rights” by the federal government
According to a late October article in the New York Times, “President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for [two] federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter.” He is claiming damages for federal investigations into possible connections between him and the Russians during his 2016 campaign, and for the FBI’s violation of his privacy by searching for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. (The FBI did find illegally retained classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.) Now that Trump is president, he is essentially asking Pam Bondi, who heads up DOJ and whom he appointed (and can fire), for almost a quarter billion-dollar payment. It sounds like a clear case of self-dealing, but who is going to stop it?
Two proposed Trump monuments: The “Arc de Trump” and Trump Stadium
- CBS News reported on October 15 that “President Trump … showed off a model of what may be his next Washington, D.C. development project, an arch that resembles the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and is being referred to informally as the ‘Arc de Trump’ … CBS News' Ed O'Keefe asked the president who the arch is for, and Mr. Trump pointed at himself: ‘Me’.”
- Trump wants the new Commanders stadium to be named after him. As pointed out by The Hill, “the Commanders are building a new stadium in Washington because President Biden—not President Trump—signed legislation to transfer the old RFK Stadium grounds back to the city.”
Conclusion
It's common practice for dictators to have multiple palaces (Saddam Hussein, Vladimir Putin), for cities to be named after them (Stalingrad, Leningrad), and to build monuments that often don't survive the end of their dictatorships (Mussolini, Franco, Gaddafi). Trump is a wannabe dictator. This article describes his grandiose self-image (and, perhaps, his personal insecurity), and how he wants to plaster his graffiti tag all over the nation’s capital. His egomania is one more way in which he is attempting to legitimate his and his followers’ authoritarian tendencies.
