What’s in a name?

Town to celebrate Donald J. Trump fire station

If you’ve never heard of Everton, Arkansas, you’re not alone. The southeastern Boone County town has a population of just more than 100, which understandably impacts the resources its leaders have. When a benefactor steps forward, it can’t be easy to turn away the help.

We’re not saying anyone in the town particularly wanted to reject the generosity of 91-year-old Leon Trammell of Florida. He says he has fond memories of his boyhood in Everton. The experiences of that youth inspired a lifelong desire to help the place where he was born.

For that, he deserves credit. Too many people forget their roots and never quite get around to giving back. Trammell, owner of a manufacturing company, says he’s done business in all 50 states and 57 other countries. He has the resources to give back.

Everton, thanks to Trammell, now has a new, two-bay metal building that serves as a fire station, something the town desperately needed. So when Trammell put conditions on his offer to pay for the building, it’s hard to imagine anything he might want that would prompt a rejection of the money. He could probably suggest naming it after Donald Trump, and the town’s leaders wouldn’t even flinch.

Forget probably. That’s exactly what Trammell did. If he delivered on the building, Trammell said, the town would have to agree to name the building after the former president. It would also have to rename two streets, one to honor former Arkansas Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller and another for former Mayor Melba Holder Jones, one of Trammell’s teachers and grandmother of the current mayor. She died in 2014.

The building, emblazoned with the words “Donald J. Trump Fire Department,” is set to be dedicated Saturday.

“I think he was one hell of a president,” Trammell told reporter Bill Bowden. “I don’t like him as a man. He’s all ego. But in my opinion, he did one hell of a job.”

It’s a reflection of a characteristic practically everyone has underestimated about Donald Trump: He’s an awful human being, yet people like Trammell are driven to name a building in his honor. Trump was apparently right when he bragged to a campaign rally crowd that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK? It’s, like, incredible.”

We agree with the last part of what he said. It’s incredible.

It’s a head-scratcher. Trammell indicates he wanted to honor Trump’s performance as president, but not the man. But if you drive by the fire station on Arkansas 206, the name on the building isn’t the Donald J. Trump Public Policy Fire Department. Despite what the benefactor says, he’s facilitated a tribute to the man, not his policies. It’s no less a tribute to the man than Trump’s own naming of skyscrapers, casinos, golf courses and airplanes for himself.

Mayor Rob Jones sees the matter in simple terms: The town needed a new station and Trammell made it happen. Problem solved. The mayor said as long as the town gets a free station, Trammell or anyone else could want it named after Mickey Mouse, and he’d still be on board with it.

Trump can be cartoonish, but he’s no Mickey Mouse. Still, Trammell can ask for whatever he wants in exchange for his strings-attached philanthropy. It’s a matter of public policy as to whether a town accepts it.

And as a matter of public policy, are Everton’s leaders saying they’d take the money no matter who the donor wanted to honor? What if the fire station was to be named after a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan? What if he demanded (gasp!) that it be named after President Joe Biden?

What if the request was to name the fire station after a convicted arsonist? Figuratively speaking, it is. Donald Trump, from a political perspective, likes to set fires all the time. He operates from a scorched earthy policy whether he’s serving as president, running for president or operating a business.

Let’s hope the agreement to name the fire station after Trump at least has a form of morality clause that allows the town to shed his name should Trump step over a line that even Everton’s leaders can’t justify. Perhaps being convicted of efforts to overturn the 2020 election results so he could stay in power would trigger such a clause.

Or maybe the people of Everton are even fine with a convicted ex-president, like so many of their fellow Arkansans appear to be.