A boulevard for the president – and the belief in one’s own infallibility

In Palm Beach County, order has now been definitively established: A stretch of Southern Boulevard now bears the president’s name. Precisely the stretch that runs from the airport directly to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. The road home, now officially signposted as well. It would be hard to mark a sense of one’s own importance in the world more fittingly.

Trump appeared visibly moved at the ceremony in the ballroom of his club. It was a “very important stretch,” he said, used by many people – important and less important ones, which, as he emphasized, ultimately did not matter to him. What seems to matter is something else: that they all drive over his name. He was particularly proud of the street sign itself. Lit up at night, clearly visible, “Donald J. Trump Boulevard.” Anyone who sees it, the president declared, will be filled with pride. Not pride in him, of course not. But in the country. That these two things are scarcely separable in his world went unspoken.

The new boulevard is less infrastructure than monument. No historical legacy, no national event, but an honor bestowed on request – from the airport straight to one’s own front door. Megalomania does not have to be loud. Sometimes a street sign is enough.