Caffeinated Politics

If Donald Trump wants to play his usual style of nasty hardball with New York City, this time threatening to yank federal funds should voters dare elect a Democrat with socialist leanings as mayor, then perhaps it’s time the city responded in kind. Not with protests or lawsuits. No, no. Let’s speak Orange Mussolini’s language: real estate.

Let’s talk about eminent domain.

Yes, that clause in the Constitution allows governments to seize private property for public use. Usually reserved for highways, schools, or the occasional bridge to nowhere. But why not Trump Tower? After all, if Trump insists on treating federal funds in such a shabby fashion like it were his personal Monopoly money, surely the city can treat his gaudy, gilded skyscraper (you can always tell new money from old) like a community asset waiting to improve the lives of city dwellers.

Can you imagine Trump Tower reborn as Affordable Housing Plaza. The first thing to be gutted would be the gold-plated elevators to be replaced with reliable, UNION-installed lifts that don’t smell like orange tan spray and childish ego. I see the lobby being offered up for one of Zohran Mamdani’s signature campaign platforms, a bustling grocery store offering fresh produce, SNAP-friendly prices, and zero portraits of Ivanka. But then to rub salt into the wound of Trump’s sexually permissive lifestyle I would place on the first floor a public health clinic specializing in sexually transmitted infections.

Now, some cranky conservative critics might clutch their pearls and cry, “But what about property rights?” To them we simply point out that Trump once tried to use eminent domain to bulldoze an elderly woman’s house for a limousine parking lot at his Atlantic City casino. Some right-wingers would cringe and ask us to consider institutional norms? Or wish us to consider constitutional reverence. Oh, stow it! Trump has treated the Constitution like a menu at Mar-a-Lago. In other words, it is skimmed, ignored, and occasionally used to wipe up spilled Diet Coke or grease from an over-cooked steak. (And, really isn’t that a crime deserving of punishment?)

If Trump wants to get pissy with federal funds, then lets repurpose the Tower into a sanctuary for the public good. That place has long been a symbol of excess, exclusion, and it would look so much better as a beacon of equity, access, and maybe a decent bagel where the first smear is free.

So, Mussolini, if you insist on punishing cities for their political choices, don’t be surprised when those cities start getting creative. Eminent domain isn’t just a legal tool and if it was used against Trump, it would be a perfectly poetic one. Trump Tower To Tenement Housing. Now that is a bumper sticker America would love to see.