Is removal of Trump's name from Kennedy Center a metaphor?

OPINION:

In what could be a metaphor for things to come, workers removed President Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center in Washington.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled that the rebranding of the Kennedy Center as the “Trump Kennedy Center ” violated the law, writing, “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

Is America growing tired of Mr. Trump’s nonstop appearances? His disapproval ratings suggest overexposure could be a contributing factor.

He goes on sometimes for more than an hour in his frequent Oval Office appearances and often repeats himself. He still claims he “won” the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump seems reluctant to cede the limelight to anyone else.

In a September 2023 interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the then-former president acknowledged that, despite receiving counsel from multiple people that the 2020 election was not stolen, he pushed ahead anyway with his false claims to try to overturn the results.

Perhaps he should have considered the proverb that says: “The godly give good advice to their friends; the wicked lead them astray” (Proverbs 12:26 NLT).

Scripture, which apparently Mr. Trump does not read, is full of examples of what happens to people who ignore good advice and seek their own way.

If the midterm elections turn out the way current polls indicate (and polls are not always right), Mr. Trump can look forward to his final two years in office achieving little while facing more impeachments and numerous investigations into his family’s business dealings.

Most would consider Mr. Trump’s presidency a failure, regardless of the outcome of the Iran war. He will have only himself to blame.

As Annie Linskey writes in The Wall Street Journal: “[He] and his advisers have made a strategic decision to turn the president into an omnipresent figure in American life, drawing a contrast with his octogenarian predecessor, Joe Biden. [He] makes regular marathon appearances in the Oval Office, he answers reporters’ cold calls and he tees off on social media at all hours of the day and night. The result is that Americans are seeing more of both the good and the bad of an aging president.”

These include, she notes, bruised hands, closed eyes at Cabinet meetings and other events, a stooped posture and confusion about names and places.

What the president should be doing is featuring people who have benefited from his policies and those who did not benefit when Democrats ran the government. It is not about him and his legacy. A legacy will take care of itself if the policies work.

It is about who benefits from those policies. Democrats want us to believe only “the rich” benefit, and so they must be taxed into oblivion.

Why do we keep debating these policies every two to four years? It is because the debate is about policies, not which ideas have worked and which have not.

In conservative churches, people give what they call “testimonies” about how God has transformed their lives. That can also be applied to politics.

These testimonies would include the formerly poor who are now able to care for their families because they embraced ideas promoted by Republicans. The same would be true for poor children who were trapped in failing public schools but are now, because of school choice programs, making good grades, graduating from high school and attending college.

Many voters would respond to such policy contrasts. They have before. The president should try this strategy, although at his age and with his record, he is unlikely to take good advice, even from friends.

If he refuses, he will have greater concerns than his name being removed from the Kennedy Center .

• Readers may email Cal Thomas at  tcaeditors@tribpub.com . Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book, “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (Humanix Books).