There was no shortage of bad news in 2025. But I want to end the year by looking to the future and focusing on something happier: de-Trumpification. I've spent most of this year – most of the last decade, in fact – thinking about one person. Now, for a moment, I want to think about what comes after this.
One day, most likely by January 20, 2029, Donald Trump will no longer be President of the United States. The Constitution will prohibit him from running for a third term, no matter how nonsense that is Alan Dershowitz plans to publish soon. It is very likely that Trump will be replaced by a new Democratic president. America's economic, social and moral decline in just the last 11 months makes it unlikely that his successor will win the most votes in 2028.
This new president, whoever he is, will face countless choices about how to recover from Trump's second term. Some things simply cannot be undone. The United States will likely never be able to regain the full trust of our allies in Europe and Asia, who now know that another Trump is always four years away, at most. Confidence in the rule of law in this country will remain shaken for generations, as will our reputation as a home for immigrants and a stronghold of democratic and constitutional government.
Other damage can be repaired, but only with time and effort. Federal agencies will have to rehire thousands of government workers to replace those purged by figures like Elon Musk and Russell Vought. Institutional knowledge at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and other organizations will need to be expanded. Funding for academic and scientific research will need to be renewed. There are thousands of green card applications to be approved and hundreds of citizenship ceremonies to be held. Criminal investigations will need to be opened and antitrust litigation will need to be reopened.
For now, I want to focus on the less influential but highly symbolic aspects of de-Trumpification. It is not enough to simply reverse Trump's policies or reverse his executive orders when a new Democratic president takes office. The next administration must commit to cleaning up our national life from the aesthetic rot of Trump's second term. De-Trumpification should be celebrated as an act of victory and an exercise in joy.
Take Trump's campaign against the Kennedy Center, for example. Congress created the cultural center in Washington, D.C. in 1958 and legally designated it a “living monument” to John F. Kennedy after his assassination in 1963. Potomac's iconic stages and theaters have hosted some of the greatest artists from the United States and around the world.
Trump spent much of 2025 desecrating the place. First, he purged most of the board of directors running the institution. He then replaced its members with pliable ideologues and sycophantic cronies, and ended by appointing himself the new chairman. In recent months, Trump has personally overseen its cultural work. This week, his subordinates tried to end their cultural vandalism by renaming the center itself.
“I was just informed that the highly respected board of the Kennedy Center, some of the most successful people from around the world, have just voted unanimously to rename the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center because of the incredible work that President Trump has done over the past year to save the building,” White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt announced on Twitter this week. “Not only in terms of its renovation, but also financially and its reputation.”
Even the North Korean regime might turn pale at such narcissism. Trump's coming to power not only did not “save” the institution, but also led to its consequences. destroyed the Kennedy Center's finances and its reputation for boycotts and purges, with ticket sales near pandemic lows. The renaming attempt is clearly illegal since Congress legally named it after Kennedy. The Trump administration, as usual, concerned about the rule of law, paid no attention to this. After half a century of reading “John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” the building's marble exterior now also has the words “Donald J. Trump and” on top. (In typical casual fashion, the second “the” is left on the front.)
When these letters arrive during the next president's term, it should not be done in the middle of the night or without any warning.
It is unclear how much of this vandalism comes from Trump and how much from his subordinates eager to please him. For example, earlier this month the State Department said it had renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace. First, the department, without any warning, posted several cheap steel letters at the main entrance to the building. However, by the end of the day, the State Department's Twitter account officially announced the change “to reflect the greatest figure in our nation's history.”
Not even the clumsiest and most inept political cartoonist could top this. Trump is a weak broker at best: His attempts to intimidate America's top trading partners into signing new trade deals have largely failed this year, and the Supreme Court appears poised to strip him of his favorite cudgel. His negotiations on Capitol Hill this summer went no further than passing one omnibus budget before he abandoned the legislative process altogether. “We don't need to pass any more bills,” Trump boasted in October.
It goes without saying that the choice to rename is an oxymoron. At Trump's direction, the US military is currently killing people on small boats throughout the Caribbean and Western Pacific, alleging that they are drug smugglers or, in even more alarmist terms, “narco-terrorists.” Instead of detaining them and putting them on trial, Trump is summarily executing them. The president has also ordered a naval blockade of Venezuela in hopes of toppling Nicolas Maduro's regime, but may yet resort to full-scale military force to remove him. Congress has not given any legal permission for any of this.
Taking down those nameplates would be as much about telling the truth as anything else. Other tasks will be more difficult. Trump's most egregious act to date has been the demolition of the historic East Wing of the White House. This occurred without any public notice or consultation, without any authorization from Congress, and without the approval of key historical and architectural boards. The President simply hired construction equipment and began demolishing government property.
Trump hopes to replace it with a huge ballroom to entertain foreign dignitaries and domestic supporters. I won't list its projected cost, seating capacity, or square footage because by the time you finish reading this article, it will likely have increased again. The President continually revised his plans for the ballroom, each time with increasing grandeur, and he recently fired the original architect he hired, at least in part due to creative and structural differences.
The corrupt and self-serving project is a permanent scar on one of America's most important public sites. And yet, part of me still hopes that Trump will complete the project before the end of his second term. I can't imagine a better spectacle for the next Democratic president's first 100 days than the destruction of whatever decadent monstrosity he builds. The ballroom's supposed architectural flaws will likely require it anyway, but the next president should make quite a show of it.
What can you do with the site? One might be tempted to cordon off the area around the ballroom, hire a demolition crew to stuff it with big bundles of dynamite, and hook it up to one of those old-fashioned plungers that Wile E. Coyote uses when he tries to blow up the Road Runner. Perhaps the final push could be synchronized with the Fourth of July fireworks or midnight on some other historical anniversary.
However, given the historical structures near the site, a less explosive but still impressive option may be a safer option. In any case, there must be an element of public participation in the destruction of the ballroom. When Trump tore down the East Wing, his cronies hid the wreckage from the public, as if on some fundamental level they knew it was wrong. The next president should make the ballroom's fate a cause for public celebration. Families should be present to watch this happen. Music should be played for the public. Networks should broadcast this live. Americans should celebrate his passing.
After this, the East Wing should be restored exactly as it was before, as if Trump had never existed. A similar fate will befall his other “updates” of the White House. White House officials should film themselves removing the cheap and tacky display of presidential portraits outside the West Wing and the disparaging plaques beneath them. The next administration should make a documentary about tearing down the Mar-a-Lago-style patio he paved over the Jackie Kennedy rose garden to install it.
More humiliations await us in the next three years. The US Mint is reportedly plans issue a dollar coin with Trump's portrait, despite a long-standing precedent against using living people on US currency. There have been proposals among Trump's supporters in Congress to seat him in Congress. 100 dollars or US$250 Bill to rename airports after him to make his birthday federal holidayand so that cut his likeness to Mount Rushmore.
De-Trumpification, of course, must go far beyond this. Joe Biden, the previous president after Trump, has tried to balance public calls for unity and reconciliation with prosecutors' efforts to hold Trump and his allies accountable for their crimes. The next Democratic president may not have that opportunity. Ideally, they would hold him accountable again for any crimes he committed and pressure the Supreme Court to overturn his disastrous immunity decision. Trump will also likely take steps to immunize his allies and associates through liberal use of the pardon power, further complicating matters.
For now, suffice it to say that the end of the Trump presidency should be markedly different from previous changes of administration. De-Trumpification must be reflected visually and physically. It should be an event and a celebration. This should serve as a lasting memory and warning to all who hope to revere authoritarian figures on American soil in the future. This should mean not just political defeat, but also public rejection of Trumpism itself.
After all, what Trump and his allies are doing isn't really about honoring him. These tributes are intended to convey the same message as the unrepaired hole in the wall left by the fist of a violent domestic abuser. The goal is to humiliate and intimidate anyone who does not support him, to use violence without leaving bruises, and to create a constant feeling of anxiety, despair and fear. The marked erasure of his image and name from American public life will not be a distraction from moving forward, but rather a prerequisite for it.
