In yet another pointless sop to his ego, the president has renamed the Institute of Peace after himself.
The Trump administration has renamed the U.S. Institute of Peace after President Donald Trump and has planted the president’s name on the organization’s headquarters despite an ongoing fight over the institute’s control.
It’s the latest twist in a seesaw court battle over who controls the U.S. Institute of Peace, a nonprofit think tank that focuses on peace initiatives. It was an early target of the Department of Government Efficiency this year.
On Wednesday, the State Department said it renamed the organization to the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace to “reflect the greatest dealmaker in our nation’s history.” The new name could be seen on its building, which is near the State Department.
This is the first I’ve heard of the US Institute of Peace — apparently it was founded by Reagan, has floundered ineffectively for decades, and was recently gutted by DOGE, so I can’t be too wound up about this renaming. It’s still yet another transparent ploy by Trump to get a Nobel Peace Prize, and I’m disgusted by the game he’s playing.
Our next president had better be motivated to expunge the Trump name from every building and every document, unless it is to damn him to hell. Our national shame is being advertised everywhere, and I hate it.
Considering that Reagan’s name is still on an airport (an insult to every ATC worker everywhere) I’m not sanguine about that.
This national shame is a strong motivation to thoroughly uproot and clean out everything he touched after he’s gone.
I was sure this was either a prank or satire, so I fact checked it. It’s real. Fuck.
That’s his entire thing: to put his name up on stuff, and profit thereby.
Remember 2021?
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/inside-donald-trumps-stimulus-checks/story?id=77534116
↓
An inside look at how Donald Trump’s name came to appear on stimulus checks
ABC News obtained images and emails showing the scramble to add his name.
Donald Trump has always liked to put his name on things — in big letters — on towers, hotels, golf resorts — even steaks. As president, his black-marker signature was outsize and famously distinctive.
So, when questions were raised about whether he would want his name on millions of stimulus checks sent to Americans last year, it not only seemed plausible, it also unleashed a firestorm of criticism from Democrats.
Now, internal emails obtained by ABC News give an inside look at the scramble to add Trump’s name just days before payments started going out in the middle of a presidential election year.
The documents provide a glimpse behind the scenes as the Trump administration sought to take credit for the payments. And for the first time, the government has released images showing versions of the checks that did not make the final cut — including those with then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s name alongside Trump’s.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D8ETQfcUIAA_XVS.jpg
Yes, and this is probably where you should stick a link to the recent article about war crimes.
…apparently it was founded by Reagan, has floundered ineffectively for decades, and was recently gutted by DOGE…
And I don’t remember them EVER getting credited for any actual peacemaking activities anywhere. So in this case, Trump sticking his own name on it, after beating it down to nothing, is both totally appropriate and a perfect indicator of what a useless, ridiculous, abusive piece of shit Trump is, and always has been. “Without me [or at least my name plastered all over you] you’re nothing!” Gosh, what kind of people are known to say that regularly?
It’s still yet another transparent ploy by Trump to get a Nobel Peace Prize…
You forgot to add, “…because Obama got one.” This really makes him miserable deep inside and I can enjoy that. It’s something he can’t steal. It needs to be earned.
Department of War Trump’s the Peace Institute.
It would be easy to get under his skin by plastering his name to things that he hates like like organizations that aid immigrants, the LGBT community, minority groups, etc. Since he’s a public figure, I doubt he’d be able to do anything about it legally.
The standard practice of all despots and dictators. There is however one difference between Trump and Hitler. Hitler wasn’t a draft-dodging coward.
It’s been a wild ride. The most dramatic part was the SIEGE, bolded below.
USIP’s independent status.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-8/#comment-2257938DOGE was thwarted at first.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-8/#comment-2257998US Attorney Ed Martin lied to local metro police about who owns the building.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-8/#comment-2258292[THE SIEGE] DOGE flipped USIP’s private security by threatening to cancel all their other gov contracts.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-8/#comment-2258432Judge Howell worried about an armed standoff in the courtroom if she ruled against Trump and considered international mediators.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-8/#comment-2258438DoJ’s sole proof that USIP was federal was that it was subject to FOIA. Even as they insisted DOGE wasn’t.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-8/#comment-2258572Employees fired.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-9/#comment-2259672Board fired.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-8/#comment-2258177DOGE Nate Cavanaugh put in charge with orders to transfer all USIP assets.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-10/#comment-2259957DOGE kid sold USIP building to the government for free.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-10/#comment-2260119Judge Howell ruled the entire takeover was unlawful and ordered everything undone.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-5/#comment-2265536Upon return, the building had water damage, rats, and roaches.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-7/#comment-2267043And weed.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-7/#comment-2267130USIP tried to rebuild.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-7/#comment-2267532DOGE had sabotaged FOIA.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/04/03/infinite-thread-xxxv/comment-page-8/#comment-2268764An appeals court gave USIP to Trump, who put a nazi in charge.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/07/02/infinite-thread-xxxvi/comment-page-3/#comment-2273128Marisa Kabas is suing to get police bodycam footage of the siege.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-4/#comment-2284355And Trump slapped his name on the building.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/10/01/infinite-thread-xxxvii/comment-page-5/#comment-2285900The goons followed a similar playbook against USADF (US African Development Foundation) and IAF (Inter-American Foundation).
First encounter, thwarted.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-7/#comment-2256855DOGE lied their way into the computers but was denied access to cancel contracts. They threatened board members. Trump bypassed rules to appoint a stooge as the sole board member, despite the existing board not having been fired. DOGE and stooge threatened the office security guard.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-7/#comment-2257003DOGE brought Marshals to take the office and changed the locks.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-7/#comment-2257103The “inherent authority” argument to appoint stooges.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/01/03/infinite-thread-xxxiv/comment-page-7/#comment-2257152That reads like a John Grisham novel, holy hell!
Of course, he’s going to win the FIFA Peace Prize, because it was created especially for him. Bet the medal is gold.
A nice summary of the Institute of Peace. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyE0yjUXfNY
propfedant, I took a look. Not bad.
↓ [transcript 0:33 to 3:53[
The irony of this move is that it seems pretty clear the Trump administration may not be entirely familiar with the nonpartisan, independent institute.
Based on the name, you’d be forgiven for assuming the entity was a product of Camelot‑era programs from Kennedy.
The institute is supposed to be governed by a bipartisan board of directors with 15 members. Some of the board’s membership is mandated: the Secretary of Defense and the president of the National Defense University must be on the board. The entity isn’t some hyper‑left agency. It was established by legislation signed by Ronald Reagan. Its original mission was to “serve the people of the government through the widest possible range of education and training, basic and applied research opportunities, and peace information services on the means to promote international peace and the resolution of conflicts among the nations and peoples of the world without recourse to violence.”
In recent years, the institute has had a budget of roughly 50 million a year, plus or minus, and it also picks up additional funding from entities like the Department of State, USAID, and the Department of Defense.
You might be getting some spooky vibes from this information. To be clear, the institute does actually perform operations in support of bringing about peaceful, non‑violent resolutions to conflict.
Recently, a White House spokesperson said: “The United States Institute of Peace was once a bloated, useless entity that blew 50 million per year while delivering no peace. Now the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, which is both beautifully and aptly named after a president who ended eight wars in less than a year, will stand as a powerful reminder of what strong leadership can accomplish for global stability.”
Fact check: Trump hasn’t ended eight wars, much less in less than a year.
Some of its most high‑profile work occurs in conflict zones. If you were in Iraq around 2007 working in the Al Anbar area, best known as the Triangle of Death, you watched as things suddenly and dramatically calmed down. That was because the institute came in at the request of 10th Mountain and brought together various factions and worked out a mini‑peace — Sunni, Shiite, and military leaders at one table. Casualties and violence plummeted.
The institute’s work was worth 50 million — that’s less than a dozen Bradleys.
Trump slapping his name on this will likely be a short‑lived thing, and it will revert after his administration.
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Institute_of_Peace
When the Egyptians damned a hated pharaoh they chiselled their name and likeness from every stela, every temple and every monument. This turned out to be incredibly useful to future historians and archaeologists since it was very clear that the individual had been deemed to have done something deeply repugnant to Egyptian civilisation. If records had existed only on papyrus rather than also on stone, we might never have realised that those offenders had even existed.
When Trump’s time is over, crudely chiselling away his name and leaving the scars in stone will send a message to future generations.
Rich Woods, ahem. Either one is erased or one is immortalised thereby.
I prefer “If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.” (Catherine Aird)
There are a couple of ways this might be countered. Longer term, apart from taking his name off of everything he wanted it on, name a bunch of landfills and public toilets after him.
Shorter term, if any of the buildings with his name need a bit of a clean, a stencil with a QR code to a suitably informative website and a power washer might help to partly alleviate that cleaning burden.
A US “Institute of Peace” is every bit as Orwellian as a “Ministry of Truth”.
I think a Donald Trump Memorial Toilet might be appropriate, though. Or you could just all line up and piss on his grave instead.
Trump should be considered an anti-example in the sense that everything he was and did and represented should be considered the opposite of what people should aspire to copy and do.
Also the example of Henry Symeonis of erstwhile Oxord infamy and tradition deserves a note here I reckon :
Source : https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/archivesandmanuscripts/2023/12/13/the-persistence-of-tradition-the-curious-case-of-henry-symeonis/
Erasing history of course doesn’t undo it or mean it didn’t happen.
Better to remember it, learn from it and make fucking well sure we avoid it in future.
Germany does seem to have done a good job there with their past nazi history vs the UsoA with their slaver traitors. (Konfederacy.)
I think it needs to be noted that flush toilets, public or otherwise, with the associated implied plumbing, are one of the greatest innovations in health getting around. Right up there with vaccines, anesthetic and hand washing/hygiene. I wouldn’t name any of these humble yet mighty public amenities after Trump at all.
I am torn on the idea — it’s precisely the sort of …. cancellation …. that RWNJs like to simultaneously decry and perform. Why validate the attitude?
^ Nope. Trump’s name is already the British slang for flatus though which is very apt.
If typically Britishly understated.
Trump’s more like the unwanted surpise follow through but even worse.. a shart and .. an infinite shart really.. & the currernt POTUS which is for now still the most powerful man* in the world.
.* Lexical choice of’ ‘man’ deliberate becoz the yanks could have have picked two far better by megaparsecs female POTUS choices but did not do so becoz they are as misogynist as fuck. Understatement again and WTF were thinking aside from misogny given those choices and the evidence we have.
If they think the rest of the planet hasn’t noticed their horrific femicidally patriachial bigotry well, they’d be very, very wrong.
Note most of the rest of the Western 1st world and even most of the 2nd & 3rd world has already elected many women to their top jobs and most powerful places. The USoA? Nup.
HoustonAmerica you have a problem.Donald has had an odd obsession with bathrooms, not to mention the “aircraft dumping human waste” film.
When it becomes necessary to upgrade the sewage treatment facilities of DC, it will therefore be perfectly apt to name it “The Donald J Trump excrement treatment plant”.
.
Meanwhile, a statue commemorating the Dubya-Cheney era should have a statue of the two, along with a big “So ?” in memory of Cheney’s reply to a journalist who mentioned the fallout of that administration.
(The idea comes from a cartoon of the era)
I’m waiting for him, or one of his lackies, to propose some massive statue of him to be erected on the Mall, similar to those in the Soviet Union, North Korea, or Iraq.
As I commented yesterday on the Infinite Thread in response to CompulsoryAccount7746, Sky Captain posting about this:
The Orange Turd is just a dog pissing on everything to try to mark its territory.
.. Except dogs are lovable; and generally good. Their naturwe in general vs Trump’s are, well.. megaparsecs apart,
Trump hires new architect for White House ballroom
It’s almost as if the project was not well thought out before demolition of the old structure was carried out.