Yes—it’s true. The plaques beneath the presidential portraits in the White House aren’t satire or parody. They are Trump’s own words—his impressions of the presidents who came before him. And in them, his deficiencies are laid bare. This is a man incapable of respect. Incapable of decency or decorum. Incapable of appreciating anyone who hasn’t directly served his ego or his interests.

What’s missing from those plaques are the inevitable closing lines—the part where he implies that he alone made up for every president in history, that he alone “saved” America. Good God. The lobotomy continues. I genuinely cannot wait for the next president—Republican, Democrat, or Independent—to walk into that hollowed space, rip that shit off the walls, and ship it first-class to Trump Tower.

Every president has known both triumph and failure. Each has governed through dark chapters and hopeful ones alike. And they are flawed, like me and everyone reading this post. What there wasn’t room for on the current POTUS’s bronze plaque were the seemingly endless indiscretions, the crimes, the cruelty, and the daily demonstrations of inhumanity. That accounting will have to wait for the history books—and the vast, almost infinite cloud storage it will take to document just how dark this era truly was.
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Plaque quotes:

Joe Biden: His space (represented by a photo of an autopen instead of a portrait) has a plaque that reads, “Sleepy Joe Biden was, by far, the worst President in American History,” and falsely claims he took office as a result of a “corrupt election”.

Obama: His plaque describes him as “one of the most divisive political figures in American History” and refers to the Affordable Care Act as the “Unaffordable Care Act”.

George W. Bush: His description notes he “started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, both of which should not have happened,” and mentions the global financial crisis that occurred near the end of his term.

Bill Clinton: His plaque criticizes his championing of NAFTA and mentions that his wife, Hillary Clinton, lost the 2016 election to Trump.

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But WAIT…(can you hear the late-night ad voice?)—there was today’s announcement. The Kennedy Center for the Arts has been renamed the Trump–Kennedy Center for the Arts. Of course his name comes first. It always must. Whether you consult AI, a psychology textbook, or a basic Wikipedia entry, type in the word narcissism and watch as it becomes flesh.

We planned to binge-watch Stranger Things final season this weekend. Instead, I’ll watch the news—it chronicles an absurd national experiment in ego, damage, and denial, with real bodies, real costs, no one yelling “Cut,” and no rewind. It’s where power is just performance, truth is expendable, and consequences arrive whether anyone believes in them or not.

I want so badly to have a moderate and kinder view. It’s where I belong. But I am heart-sick daily by the cruelty masquerading as “conservative values” and am completely mystified that smart and loving people accept it so easily. It just doesn’t stop. From calling reporters names, to abandoning healthcare (totally predictable), to name-calling of reporters asking totally appropriate questions, to attacking and killing without a measure of due process, to speaking ill of the dead following a family tragedy (right at the top of the sick and evil scale), to arbitraily banning people from countries based on their color and religion while boisterously asking for those from predominantly white countries to come here (hmmmm – finally the veil is coming off) to the fictional self-accolades over “progress” that couldn’t be more the opposite, and it goes on and on.

And this is just in the last few days.

So many that I know and love seem to be desensitized to it all. Or they actually buy it all. I want to understand its attraction. The chaos is just a matter of daily life. I want to feel better. I want to have hope. It’s a stretch right now. I’m clearly outnumbered. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ll fight for what I believe is good and just. And this ain’t it.