One super-reliable way to hasten the death of something is to slap Donald Trump’s name on it. Trump Steaks. Trump Vodka. Trump University. Trump Ice. Trump Magazine. Trump University. Trump Mortgage. Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts—that was Trump’s first public company, which folded decades before the one that’s currently selling grossly overpriced meme stocks. All have long since been tossed into the Walmart dumpster of history.
Trump also failed in the airline business. So maybe renaming a Washington, D.C., airport after him isn’t the brightest idea ever.
But that’s exactly what a handful of GOP lawmakers want to do.
According to CBS News:
H.R. 7845 would designate the Washington Dulles International Airport the “Donald J. Trump International Airport.” The airport is currently named after John Foster Dulles, who served as Secretary of State in the Cold War era under former President Dwight Eisenhower. The D.C. area’s other major airport is named after former President Ronald Reagan.
Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, a Pennsylvania Republican and the majority chief deputy whip, introduced the bill on Friday. It has six GOP co-sponsors so far — Reps. Michael Waltz of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Charles Fleischmann of Tennessee, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Barry Moore of Alabama and Troy Nehls of Texas.
Wow, what a brain trust. They’re clearly of one mind, though it’s not entirely clear who’s currently using it.
Of course, they undoubtedly have a very good reason to name one of Washington’s airports after the guy who singlehandedly attempted to end American democracy because he couldn’t admit he’s a colossal loser. Or at least they’re going to darn well pretend they do.
“In my lifetime, our nation has never been greater than under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump,” Reschenthaler stated. “As millions of domestic and international travelers fly through the airport, there is no better symbol of freedom, prosperity, and strength than hearing ‘Welcome to Trump International Airport’ as they land on American soil.”
Here’s your friendly reminder that Trump created less than zero jobs in four years, continually kowtowed to dictators like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and proudly ripped reproductive freedom away from tens of millions of Americans.
But, to be fair, “freedom, prosperity, and strength” would look good on an airport gift shop neck pillow.
The irony of naming an airport that currently honors a staunch mid-20th century Cold Warrior after Trump is pretty rich, too. Trump clearly wants Russia to win its war of aggression against Ukraine. And he wants to put his name on a Russia-Ukraine peace plan that would kill Ukrainians’ constitution and freedoms to the benefit of Putin. He also wants to import autocracy and kleptocracy to our shores.
So this is pretty outrageous, really. And instead of, say, passing a Ukraine aid bill or doing something substantial on the border issues they can’t stop complaining about, House Republicans are wasting their time with a measure that will become law around the same time Trump publishes a peer-reviewed unified field theory that doubles as a church potluck Frito Pie recipe.
Then there’s the fact that Trump currently faces 88 serious felony charges, many of which involve his failed attempt to literally end America. Along with Trump University, et al., Trump Coup was yet another spectacular failure. Though, somehow, the country appears to have learned less from that failed enterprise than his luckless marks learned at Trump University.
Then again, congressional Republicans are old hands at the irony thing. After all, they named one of Washington’s airports after Ronald Reagan, the same guy who fired the striking air-traffic controllers in 1981, thereby making air travel more dangerous and, as a bonus, driving a stake into the heart of the American labor movement.
Of course, many Republicans have been reluctant to rename military installations that honor Confederate generals, so naming an airport after a modern-day traitor to the republic is a lateral move at worst.
To be sure, there’s little danger that this proposal will go past the initial planning stages, since the Trump cult is currently out of power, and the chance of President Joe Biden signing such a bill is, well, zero.
But if Trump somehow returns to the White House and declares martial law, all bets are off. Though if that happens, we may have to worry more about Trump chiseling Abe out of the Lincoln Memorial, shoehorning a gold statue of himself in there, and converting the chair into a power-flush toilet.
But hey, we’ll cross the Trump Thousand-Year Reich Bridge—Sponsored by Tostino’s Pizza Rolls (fka the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge) when we come to it.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link.