Missouri lawmakers want to rename highways after Trump. Here’s why that’s a bad idea | Opinion

Maybe someday every highway in Missouri will be named after Donald Trump.

We can only hope.

A pair of Missouri legislators are already on the job. State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, and Arnold Republican, would rename much of the state highway system the Donald J Trump Highway. The exceptions? Boone County, Jackson County, St. Louis County and St. Louis proper.

Those are the Democratic-voting regions of the state. So that’s thoughtful of her.

But Coleman isn’t the only Show-Me State Republican eager to honor the once-and-future president with an asphalt memorial. State Sen. Nick Schroer, a Defiance Republican, has introduced his own bill to name a portion of State Highway D in St. Charles County the President Donald J Trump Highway.

The good news: The bills from Coleman and Schroer would both rely on private donations — and not taxpayer dollars — to pay the costs of renaming the highways.

The bad news: This is all very silly.

There’s a long, long list of Missouri highways that have been named after notable people, and for the most part they’re named after Missourians who have served the state or nation with distinction — folks like former President Harry S. Truman, or any number of highway patrolmen and state troopers who died in the line of duty.

Others were folks with Missouri connections who somehow were prominent in their fields: Babe Adams, a star pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the early 1900s who farmed in Mount Moriah after his retirement, is one example.

Donald Trump doesn’t really fit that list, does he?

Admittedly, there are a couple of folks who don’t have much in the way of Missouri links, but whose contributions to America are so significant as to be indisputable — people such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.

And I’m sorry, but Trump doesn’t fit that list either.

Coleman has been at this project for several years. As a member of the Missouri House, she tried in 2021 to rename a portion of Interstate 55 after Trump, in recognition of his work “strengthening Missouri’s economy, defending our values, and making America great again during his historic first term.”

That bill failed. Go figure.

I won’t go through all the reasons — Jan. 6, two impeachments, etc. — that Donald Trump doesn’t deserve to have Missouri’s highways named after him. Voters here gave him nearly 60% of their votes in November, so they’ve rendered their judgment. They like the guy.

Still: It’s always risky to name something after a living person. You never know how they might end up disappointing you and embarrassing everybody involved with the naming process.

Locals will recall that two decades ago, the University of Missouri named its then-new sports arena after a 22-year-old Walmart heiress whose parents donated $25 million toward the construction. The university had to backtrack, though, after a roommate publicly accused the young woman of cheating her way through college.

Oops.

Trump’s second administration hasn’t started. Maybe he’ll do something unexpected and really do great things for the country.

Or maybe not.

Missouri should probably wait to rename its roads until we find out. There’s enough stuff in this country with his name on it already.

Joel Mathis is a regular Kansas City Star and Wichita Eagle Opinion correspondent. Formerly a writer and editor at Kansas newspapers, he served nine years as a syndicated columnist.

This story was originally published December 26, 2024 at 5:08 AM with the headline "Missouri lawmakers want to rename highways after Trump. Here’s why that’s a bad idea | Opinion."