The Present Breaks the Past's Heart

: Jamie Stiehm on Jun 3, 2026

Change is not my best friend. Not since the day my family moved from Wisconsin to California when I was eight.

Leaving the land of my grandmother, the skating rink and snowballs in winter, Lake Mendota and the tennis courts in summer, the community garden and all that seemed unfair.

The Fourth of July parade for kids was pure Americana. I dressed as the Statue of Liberty. Ice cream never tasted better than it did then and there.

Los Angeles seemed like paradise lost, with a smoggy sky in a child's eyes. Grown-ups talked about the Manson murders. Take me back, please!

That wistful feeling comes back to me now, with my chosen city of Washington. The green beauty, marble memorials and presence of history is under a siege by the president, who seems obsessed with revenge on all of us for losing the 2020 election.

An Ultimate Fighting Championship cage fight on the White House lawn -- really? Make it go away.

The founding fathers had plenty of flaws. But they would never believe this would come to pass in the republic they cherished. They had standards. They would weep with me.

All in time for the Fourth of July, the nation's 250th birthday.

Graceful Lafayette Square, in front of the White House, with an Andrew Jackson equestrian statue, is being torn up for no apparent reason. That has suffrage history too. Women protested against Woodrow Wilson, chaining themselves to the gates and going to jail. All they asked was to vote.

A public golf course in an idyllic waterfront setting may be eradicated, trees and all, because this golf-obsessed president aims to build one more "luxury" golf course, his greatest love in life after the golden arches.

Don't even talk about the destroyed East Wing of the White House, frozen in ballroom shambles. That should be known as the Trump Memorial, along with the Jefferson Memorial and other presidents remembered in the capital. It truly reflects the state of his nation in his reign.

We're demoralized, uncertain, suffering under the yoke of his grandiosity. While he plans to build a massive arch by Arlington Cemetery, he shrugs at people's troubles with the Iran war, gas and grocery prices, not to mention losing jobs in an AI economy. Hello?

His crude language is a crime against English teachers everywhere.

But enough about him for now. He can take up all the room in your life and liberty if you don't watch out. For some peace, I fled to an alumni reunion at my sylvan liberal arts college in Philadelphia.

I hardly recognized the place. The little train station, the lofty treelined walkway up to the main building built by the Quaker founders, the simplicity and symmetry of the campus, it was disrupted. So many paths were cut off. The sloping lawn where we studied in Adirondack chairs had a giant geothermal dig, opening a deep hole in the earth for renewable energy.

Like Washington, my college looked like a construction site. At least the lush Rose Garden was still there, in full bloom. The White House Rose Garden, envisioned by President and Mrs. Kennedy, was murdered by the present occupant, who paved over it in one of his rage and revenge tours.

The president will never admit how much he envies the Kennedy touch of class. His actions speak loudly. He slapped his name on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He also intended to shutter it for two years, starting this summer. What a way to celebrate the Fourth.

But will the grand building overlooking the river ever regain its prominence in the national arts scene?

I had the same sinking feeling about breaking a beloved part of the past.

A federal judge just restrained the president and ordered his name be removed from the walls. He also prevented the impending closure, perhaps saving the National Symphony Orchestra from searching for a new venue.

So I went to listen to "Appalachian Spring" performed by the orchestra. The president doesn't know a thing about "Appalachian Spring," a lyrical classic by composer Aaron Copland.

A man at the ticket office pointed to my lemon linen blouse.

"Yellow means hope," he said, smiling.

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The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

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