Mar-a-Lago must become a museum and research center on American Fascism in 2029.

Germany & other countries have shown the importance of repurposing specific sites to help with reconciliation, promotion of a more honest national identity, healing & truth telling.

We are passed the point where there’s any argument about whether Donald Trump and his administration constitute an autocratic takeover of the U.S. government. His serial law breaking, his titanic corruption, his personal consolidation of power are clear threats to American Democracy. We can win back the Congress, and even the office of the President, but to recover and stabilize the democracy we must repurpose the symbols of autocratic power as soon as we have the power to do so.

That’s the lesson of post war Germany, post-Civil War America, and other places around the world. Go to Wannsee, near Berlin and see how the villa where the Final Solution was planned is now a museum and educational center. All over Germany, Nazi spaces have been reclaimed and used to make certain the country never again falls victim to dictatorship. In Russia, the notorious Perm-36 Gulag was turned into a museum and research center. It operated from 1995 until Putin shut it down in 2014. Robben Island, the notorious prison in South Africa that held Nelson Mandela is now a museum. Arlington National Cemetery, that most important memorial to soldiers who died fighting to save American democracy, was once the plantation of Robert E. Lee, the general who did so much to destroy it.

Sometimes called “sites of conscience,” these repurposed places exist to help with reconciliation, recognition, promotion of a more honest national identity, healing, truth telling, civic engagement, and the idea of never again.

When we prevail, we must take Mar-a-Lago and turn it into a new Smithsonian Museum of American Fascism along with a related research center. I imagine exhibits on the abuse of power, on the systemic use of threats and intimidation, on the use of political violence, on vigilantism, on institutional guardrails that were attacked and overcome, on the institutions that held despite the intimidation and threats. I’d like to see an exhibit in the bathroom with the boxes of stolen national secrets, and one in the most gold-plated room that goes into detail about the size and scope of the personal grifting.

Mar-A-Lago circa 1967. Photo Credit: Library of Congress

Personally, if it weren’t fake, I would melt down the gold that now guilds the oval office and give the proceeds to Lutheran Social Services, the first organization that Trump attacked for helping people he disliked.

Scholars tell us we should do similarly with some of the organizations and networks that support the autocrats. That means thinking carefully about the future of X and OANN - two platforms that blast autocratic propaganda into our political system. Careful thought is also due organizations like the Heritage Foundation that authored the autocratic playbook being implemented by Mr. Trump. Maybe they get put out of business. Or put to new use. Congress will have to consider these questions when it can.

But the most important symbol, the one we must transform as soon as we are able, is Mar-a-Lago. It is the center of the autocratic takeover, the place of ritual capitulation and bended knees. It is Mr. Trump’s most powerful base of operations. It must become an equally powerful lesson to posterity that America fully and completely repudiates this autocratic break with our democratic heritage and culture, and a powerful sign that we will not go back.

Note: Some have asked how the government can take private property. In fact, it does so frequently. The government can seize property through criminal forfeiture. Despite the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, this remains a possibility in Mr. Trump’s case. Second, the government can force owners to sell property through the process of eminent domain. All that land under federal highways? Much of it used to be in private hands. Taking Mar-a-Lago is not just possible; it is an important part of restoring the rule of law and constitutional democracy in America.

Follow me on Bluesky at @eisendrath.net and on Substack at It’s the Democracy, Stupid.