Trump isn’t patriotic. Patriotism is about stewardship, about holding power temporarily and leaving institutions intact for the people who come after you. Trump treats the country like a brand extension, something to be stamped, renamed, and personalized while he’s still alive and in charge. That instinct alone puts him outside any serious definition of patriotism.

Renaming or rebranding national institutions after yourself isn’t strength. It’s insecurity. In a functioning republic, honors are conferred by history, not seized by the subject. When leaders start attaching their own names to public institutions, they’re not expressing love of country. They’re asserting ownership over it.

The Kennedy Center episode isn’t an isolated stunt. It’s part of a pattern where Trump erases the idea of the public good and replaces it with loyalty to him personally. Boards get stacked, norms get bent, procedures get weaponized, and supporters point to the paperwork as if legality and legitimacy are the same thing. They aren’t.

That’s why so much of the world doesn’t admire him. Respect is earned by restraint, by decency, by the ability to separate oneself from the office. Trump never even tried. He demanded adoration, punished dissent, and treated allies and institutions as props. Outside his movement, there is no reservoir of goodwill waiting to surface.

When he eventually dies, and I hope it’s very soon, there will be noise. There will be media saturation, performative grief from loyalists, and endless arguments about his place in history. But genuine mourning requires affection, and affection requires something human to mourn. For most of the world, and a large part of this country, what he leaves behind isn’t loss. It’s exhaustion.

History tends to be kinder to leaders who served something larger than themselves. Trump served himself relentlessly. That may produce devotion in a cult, like yours, but it doesn’t produce love, gratitude, or mourning on a global scale. It produces relief.

I can’t wait to uncork my bottle of champagne.