Win some, lose some, keep fighting

Kennedy Center late Friday afternoon

At 3:46 p.m. this afternoon, the Trump DOJ filed an emergency appeal for a stay of a lower court order to remove Trump’s name from the façade of the Kennedy Center. Earlier today, Judge Christopher R. Cooper of Federal District Court in Washington D.C. had denied a request by the administration to stay his order. The move by the Trump administration to take the case to the D.C. Court of Appeals marks the latest escalation in Trump’s fight to keep his name on a building that was designated by Congress in 1964 as a “living memorial” to President Kennedy, who had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas, the year before.

As I write this, a live stream of the Kennedy Center posted by MS Now shows scaffolding that was erected earlier today, but no workers, and no letters of Trump’s name missing. Earlier, the live stream showed workers in bright green vests and hard hats erecting the scaffolding but carrying none of the equipment that would be necessary to begin removing the 18 letters adding Trump’s name that were bolted to the façade of the building several months ago. The absence of the workers probably indicates that the board of the Kennedy Center has ordered work stopped while they wait to see if the Court of Appeals will rule in Trump’s favor and leave his name in place. Under the order from Judge Cooper, the board has until midnight today to remove Trump’s name or be found in contempt of court. The board, with the exception of one person, was appointed by Trump, and he appointed himself its chairman.

Donald Trump, who has pretty much been bolted to the chair of his desk in the Oval Office recently, not departing the White House to engage in any of his off-duty activities, which include playing golf and having his ego stroked by adoring sycophants and nothing else, has been metaphorically running around Washington slapping his name or his atrocious sense of taste on everything he sees. Work has reportedly begun on his hideous 250-foot-tall arch in the middle of a traffic circle on the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge. He ordered, at the expense of some $20 million, that the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial be painted a hideous shade of royal blue that he calls “flag blue.” Recent reports from Washington have said that a new layer of what is being called “residual algae” is growing on the newly-painted bottom of the pool, raising the possibility that come nightfall, someone could wade into the pool and scrape either Trump’s name or “8647” into the algae in the way those numbers were recently mowed into a field of grass elsewhere on the D.C. Mall.

In other news, a judge rejected a lawsuit seeking to stop the cage fight on the south lawn of the White House that is scheduled for this Sunday evening. The judge rejected the suit that was filed by several D.C. residents for “lack of standing,” which is to say that the plaintiffs could not meet the fairly steep but reasonable elements that must be met in order for a lawsuit to be considered in federal court. The plaintiffs must demonstrate that they would suffer an “injury in fact” to an interest they have; they must demonstrate a connection between the injury and the “conduct,” in this case the erection of Trump’s ugly “claw” a few yards from the White House; and plaintiffs must demonstrate that the harm done to them could be “redressed” by a favorable decision by the court, which would be ordering the removal of the offending “claw” and ordering that the cage fight be cancelled.

The judge found that the “injury” suffered by the plaintiffs was “aesthetic” alone and did not measure up to the requirement for standing, so the lawsuit was dismissed.

Trump has been assaulting the entirety of the manner that Washington D.C. institutions and monuments have been protected for decades, if not centuries, with a tactic that is at once horrid and clever. His lawyers have presented the argument that if something is done to an institution such as the White House – destroying its East Wing, for example – the action amounts to an establishment of “facts on the ground” that cannot be reversed because no one will be able to establish “standing” in a federal court to reverse it.

The entire world is harmed by Trump’s abominable sense of taste, of course. Erecting his truly awful monument to himself that would be his ballroom is an assault on everyone’s senses. But the harm is not particular enough in the eyes of the law, because although the White House is owned by the nation’s “people,” and maintained for the public good with the use of taxpayer dollars, the “people” must be represented in order to take a case to court, and the only representation of the “people” that is adequate under the law would be the Congress. Controlled by Republicans, Congress is not going to exercise its responsibility to oversee the nation’s property, such as the White House and its grounds, the Reflecting Pool, and the traffic circle between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial. The end result is, with a cowed and chickenshit Republican Congress unwilling to exercise its power and responsibility, the courts cannot and will not act to protect the people’s property.

It may be that the Court of Appeals rules against Trump later this evening and workers are ordered to go back to removing his name from the Kennedy Center because an act of a previous Congress mandated that Kennedy alone is to be honored by the center’s naming. Or it may be that the Trump administration wins a temporary stay of Judge Cooper’s order, and Trump’s name is allowed to remain on the exterior of the Kennedy Center until a full hearing can be held by the Court of Appeals.

The only thing we can count on is that Donald Trump and his sycophants will continue their campaign to desecrate everything in Washington D.C. and elsewhere until a new Congress is elected that will do its duty and stand up for the American people and their interests, aesthetic or otherwise, in maintaining a semblance of dignity in our nation’s Capital.

Stay tuned.