Politics
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April 28, 2025
You possibly can’t title Penn Station after Donald Trump. You possibly can’t even joke about it.
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New York Governor Kathy Hochul
(Selcuk Acar / Anadolu by way of Getty Photos)
Sure, New York Governor Kathy Hochul is already backtracking.
Embroiled in varied public transportation battles with disgraced, twice-impeached President Donald Trump, Hochul just lately supplied one strategy to win his assist to finish renovations on storied Penn Station: to call it after him.
“If he places $7 billion into it? Who is aware of?” the governor informed reporters on Friday. “It will not be my favourite factor to name it, nevertheless it’ll save us $1.3 billion I’m not planning to spend.”
New York would possibly title the revival of a as soon as superb palace of prepare journey that was a hellhole for commuters 60 years in the past, after the kind of man who supported the insurance policies and the attitudes that made it a hellhole? Additionally, a person convicted of 34 felonies in our state, sued for enterprise fraud by New York Lawyer Common Leticia James and ordered to pay tons of of tens of millions, and ordered to pay a New York resident, E. Jean Carroll, $88 million for assaulting and defaming her? (Trump is interesting each these final judgments.)
Put his title on something however Rikers Island, Governor, and I’ll sit out your election. Critically. I’d not journey from Carlo Gambino’s Grand Central Station, or Fortunate Luciano’s LaGuardia Airport. Or Luigi Mangione’s Newark Station. C’mon.
I do know, I do know: Individuals like Hochul must take care of Trump, indirectly. That’s how somebody I really admire, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmerwound up infamously holding a blue binder over her face when she wound up within the Oval Workplace. These blue/purple state governors (sure, New York is a purple state while you take a look at the crimson land mass; blue New York solely comes out when properly organized, which Hochul didn’t do in 2022) imagine they must work with Trump for the sake of their states. Perhaps they’re proper. However they don’t must bow all the way down to him like this.
Over many years, New Yorkers lastly bought Daniel Patrick Moynihan Corridor, which is beautiful. However the “previous” Penn Station, which is principally the place each day commuters lurk, stays unrenovated and unlovely. Among the eating places down there bought a facelift, however the ceilings are totally too low and it nonetheless shrieks 1966. (A part of me doesn’t thoughts; that is the Penn Station I grew up with!) New York’s commuters deserve higher.
I applaud Hochul’s perseverance with your complete venture, not simply the extra profitable Amtrak a part of the station, which for its half will profit vacationers up and down the East Coast strains. However don’t even joke about placing Donald Trump’s title on what you do with it.
Bear in mind how locations throughout the nation needed to take away the Sackler title from their establishments, as soon as it grew to become related to peddling opioids to weak individuals, and killing 1000’s? The Trump title will go down in historical past as a lot worse than Sackler.
Donald Trump is sweeping authorized US residents, and even residents, in a foreign country, typically to merciless detention facilities. He has already killed an uncountable variety of individuals in international international locations along with his assist cuts. He’ll kill an finally countable variety of Individuals along with his medical analysis cuts. He’s not a frontrunner that authentic authorities leaders ought to take significantly, besides to repudiate him.
Don’t even child about this, Governor. It’s not humorous.
The chaos and cruelty of the Trump administration reaches new lows every week.
Trump’s catastrophic “Liberation Day” has wreaked havoc on the world financial system and arrange yet one more constitutional disaster at house. Plainclothes officers proceed to abduct college college students off the streets. So-called “enemy aliens” are flown overseas to a mega jail towards the orders of the courts. And Signalgate guarantees to be the primary of many incompetence scandals that expose the brutal violence on the core of the American empire.
At a time when elite universities, highly effective regulation corporations, and influential media shops are capitulating to Trump’s intimidation, The Nation is extra decided than ever earlier than to carry the highly effective to account.
In simply the final month, we’ve revealed reporting on how Trump outsources his mass deportation agenda to different international locations, uncovered the administration’s enchantment to obscure legal guidelines to hold out its repressive agenda, and amplified the voices of courageous pupil activists focused by universities.
We additionally proceed to inform the tales of those that combat again towards Trump and Musk, whether or not on the streets in rising protest actions, on the town halls throughout the nation, or in crucial state elections—like Wisconsin’s current state Supreme Courtroom race—that present a mannequin for resisting Trumpism and show that Musk can’t purchase our democracy.
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In solidarity,
The Editors
The Nation
Joan Walsh
Joan Walsh, a nationwide affairs correspondent for The Nation, is a coproducer of The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Present and the creator of What’s the Matter With White Individuals? Discovering Our Method within the Subsequent America. Her new e book (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) is Company Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Defend Revenue, Energy and Wealth In America.
