Donald Trump is obsessed with DC. He is literally remaking parts of the city in his own image. Not only has he packed the courts, created a secret police force, commandeered the military, and gilded the White House, he has also slapped his image across the city. His glaring face looms from government buildings. His name is scrawled across public and private buildings, the heads of sycophants and on the modest yard signs protesting his rule.
In DC, Trump is everywhere.
Like many second-term presidents, he is concerned about his legacy. He wants future generations to see him as a strongman. A historical figure remembered through the ages for what he did to his country, and the world.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) used to be the US’s goodwill ambassador. It would carry out disaster relief, or respond to health crises. It improved (or saved!) the lives of vulnerable people in developing countries. USAID was one of the first victims of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE). These days the lobby is dark and empty. Signage on the window remains covered in duct tape.
The administration wanted to move the FBI’s headquarters over there, but the plan was just stopped by a federal judge.
A few blocks away, the signage on the US Institute of Peace stands out from the faint “Donald J. Trump” that hovers awkwardly above it. Unlike the USIP signage, Trump’s name is difficult to see at first. The lettering isn’t carved into the stone on the building’s facade like the USIP. Instead, they’re tacked it onto the outside like some temporary decoration.
Early last year, Trump seized control of USIP, an independent non-profit created by Congress. Staff and leaders were suddenly fired, and like USAID, its offices were raided by DOGE. The fate of the USIP continues to languish in court, but the building now houses Trump’s Board of Peace and his Shield of the Americas scheme.
The front of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is draped in white tarp that conceal scaffolding. “Do Not Enter” signs with the Kennedy Center logo are fixed to bicycle fencing blocking the front entrance. A friendly guard on patrol offered me a cold water, and cranked up an industrial fan parked between the doors. I thanked him, and we both shook our heads in silence.
Trump is doing his damnedest to get his name added to the front of the building. When he initially tried it, courts ruled he overstepped his authority, which has not for a second stopped him from trying again. Funny enough, everyone has been so fixated on the front of the building that they’ve overlooked the other signs (and statues).
The streets of DC are still filled with various National Guardsmen. Shadowy federal agents still roam the streets.
The National Guard don’t do much. Most stand around, visibly bored and eager to talk to just about anyone. Over the last year, I’ve been told by several guardsmen at various times that they’ve been ordered not to talk to the press. Some have talked on background about how pointless their “mission” seems.
Around Rock Creek Parkway, a duo of US Park Police stopped a tricked out Honda. They were quickly joined by several federal Homeland Security agents, the umbrella agency under which general fascist fuckery has been occurring over the last year.
When all this started a lot of the agents wore masks during their extrajudicial “investigations.” Administration lackeys have claimed hiding the identity of these agents protects them for public scorn.
Last year, agents would run off whenever anyone with a press badge and/or a professional camera chanced upon a scene. When I walked up on an Asian man being accosted by Park Police and HSI agents along Rockcreek and Potomac Parkway, I fished out a cigarette and got comfortable in the 90 degree heat. They stared at me, so I waved back. After a brief conversation amongst themselves, a Park Police officer wrote him a ticket, and agents quickly left.
The area around the Lincoln Memorial contains the most obvious signs of Trump’s meddling. To its south, across the Arlington Memorial Bridge, sits the site of Trump’s proposed “Triumphal Arch.” The arch would sit along a traffic circle that connects DC with Arlington National Cemetery, obstructing the deliberate symmetry and view connecting the Lincoln Memorial, the cemetery, and Arlington House, the former home of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
On the DC side of the bridge sit the Art of War Statues, Valor and Sacrifice. Originally fire gilded, the statues of since been been coated with 23 karat gold leaf. The difference being that the former is a labor intensive process, the latter more like a cheap sticker job. So far, only the Art of War statues have been gilded. The Art of Peace remain covered.
A large chain link fence covered in cheap black plastic cloth surrounds the entirety of the Reflecting Pool. Generators roar as crews power wash algae from the “American Flag Blue” vinyl paint that quickly cracked and tore. People wander up to holes in the cloth and poke cellphone cameras through. Some giggle at the glimpse of a national embarrassment. It’s unclear what the trucks driving over the Reflecting Pool are doing, or if anyone in the administration has learned about photosynthesis.
At Lafayette Square, across from the White House, there’s the usual gaggle of tourists. People used to be able to roam around and take pictures inside the eight-acre park. It’s been host to activists dating back to 1918 when the women’s suffrage movement became the first group to obtain a permit to protest in view of the White House’s North Lawn. It was also the site of the longest continuous protest in US history, the four-decade White House Peace Vigil, until some bootlicker opened his mouth in March of 2025.
Now people are all corralled into a small, cramped square at H Street and 16th. The whole park is surrounded by the same eight-foot fencing that protected the Capitol Building after Trump’s failed insurrection on January 6, 2021.
Large fences around Lafayette Square is something Trump has demanded since 2020. Last month, a federal design panel packed with Trump loyalists signaled support for permanent fencing. The New York Times reports James C. McCrery II, the vice chair of the Commission of Fine Arts, saying, “This is definitely the president’s park, but also the people’s park … The proposal is not to close the park, but to enclose the park.”
There’s a bootlegger on the corner shilling “Trump hats,” as he calls them, for $15. He barks various slogans at potential rubes like, “It’s a hat only for millionaires”; “Poor haters, get you the hat of a rich man”; and, “If you don’t like America, use your visas and go home.” At one point, he barked at an Asian man, “Get your Asian ass away from me! Stop stealing!” When he saw me taking photos, he ranted that people needed to “stop stealing pictures” and buy something.
About 15 or 20 feet away, Don Folden, a career tour guide otherwise known as DC’s “Truth Conductor,” was sitting beneath an umbrella in a lounge chair. From a small boombox, he was blaring the national anthems of different tourists that walked past.
Türkiye, Peru, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Thailand. Between songs, he made announcements for tourists. Folden said the park’s been closed for over a year now, that the Trump administration has spent a lot of money for people to not enjoy what they already paid for. He added that there were 5,000 armed national guardsman walking around the city.
In front of him was a large sign that read, “Stop hating each other because you disagree.”
Across from Lafayette Square is where Black Lives Matter Plaza used to be. BLM Plaza was installed in the summer of 2020, just days after Trump ordered police and federal agents to fire tear gas at peaceful protesters and press in Lafayette Square. They beat the shit out of people and cleared everyone out so he could have a surreal photo-op with a Bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church (a move the church’s leaders immediately criticized, saying, “Mr. President I know you stood right here and held the Bible in your hands and we know that you do not hold the Bible in your heart”).
At the time, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser called it a symbol to “make America the land it ought to be.” In March of 2025, the Trump administration criticized BLM Plaza as another symbol of diversity, equity and inclusions (“DEI”). They gutted the street and restored vehicle access so guests to the luxury hotels and restaurants wouldn’t have to walk around the block past demonstrators, activists and the occasional weed smoker.
Freedom Plaza now sits full of notable figures from the Revolutionary War. The plaza has always had a statue of Casimir Pulaski, but it now includes two more. One statue honors Caesar Glover, a former slave. Another is the original Equestrian Statue of Caesar Rodney, depicting a slave owner, which resided at the Delaware State Capitol until racial justice protests of 2020 saw it removed.
Conceived as a monument to Pierre L’Enfant’s initial design for the US Capitol, Freedom Plaza is largely forgotten by most. Over the last few decades, it’s been one of the most iconic skateboard spots in the city: a long, raised plane of flat marble and stone, with steps and benches on the side. Over the years, it’s also been a rallying point during major protests, like the Occupy movement of 2010, the “Million MAGA March” in 2020, and Gaza protests in 2024. In 2026, it marked the end of the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride parade.
There aren’t many people at Freedom Plaza anymore. Skatestoppers have been installed all over the benches, and the statues keep things cramped. Outside of protests, skaters were some of the only people who ever frequented Freedom Plaza. Trumpland wants to bulldoze it to increase the flow of vehicle traffic along Pennsylvania Avenue at 14th Street. There’s a fancy hotel that hosts a lot of conservative functions at that intersection.
The temporary federal officials elected to two, four and six year terms have a unique ability to really fuck with the city. Aside from using Stephen Miller’s novel legal strategy to “move fast and break things,” the federal government can simply overrule DC’s local government. They can stop social programs like needle exchanges, policing and criminal justice reforms, gun control and the basic rights every other citizen has, like raising money and governing themselves (read: Home Rule). They can change the physical landscape of DC overnight, and there isn’t much anyone can do.
So it’s not without some irony that the 80 year-old Trump’s obsession with legacy is barreling into two historical trends: the six-year itch and the second-term curse. The first is public backlash against a sitting president during the mid-term elections. The latter is the the belief that the ghost of George Washington cursed all future presidents’ second-terms so they have faced major crises that sink their public approval numbers. Think health problems, a failing economy, political scandals, signature policy failures, disastrous wars and conflicts, etc.
The country has spent much of Trump’s second term talking about his vanity projects. Professional Trump rumormonger Maggie Habberman recently gossiped that he’s “spending a huge amount of energy, mental and otherwise, on these renovation projects, beautification projects around Washington, and then monuments to self.”
But all these self-described beautification projects distract from the things this White House has been doing over the last year and a half. Trump has mysterious absences and an odd smell, and regularly sustains large bruises. The country is in economic turmoil, partially due to global tariff policies. People believe Trump is openly corrupt as he meddles in the country’s economic engine. Insurrectionists have been given a blanket pardon, and potentially offered jobs as secret police with the power to kidnap and kill. The DOJ has redactions in the Epstein files that suggest a larger role for Trump. The White House is banning journalists and replacing them with bootlickers. The natural resources of protected environments are being pillaged. Trump’s signature legislative achievement gutted social programs for the poor and lowered taxes for the rich. The US has carried out extrajudicial assassinations, invaded multiple nations to kidnap or kill foreign leaders, and started an(other) unnecessary war. Global trade and defense alliances have been ruined. The mass firing of government workers has left us with poisoned food, and a planet that seems like it’s breaking.
Maybe the ghost of George Washington is trying to tell us something.
Subhed typo has been fixed, although 'hhost" might also be a typo for "g-g-g-ghost!"
I will happily pay extra taxes to see every vestige of Trump erased from the earth.