If the newly renamed Trump-Kennedy Center hoped to snag a website that reflects that disputed name change, a comedian beat them to it — months ago.
“South Park” writer Toby Morton predicted that President Trump would rename the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts after himself, so he bought the “trumpkennedycenter.org” and “trumpkennedycenter.com” domains in August.
The renaming of the historical performing arts institution came last week, kick-starting both a physical and digital rebranding effort and immediate legal challenges.
“As soon as Trump began gutting the Kennedy Center board earlier this year, I thought, ‘Yep, that name’s going on the building,’” Mr. Morton told The Washington Post.
Even before he became president, Mr. Trump had a noted penchant not shared by any comparably famous tycoons for habitually naming his products — golf courses, hotels, apartment complexes, casinos — after himself.
Mr. Morton followed Mr. Trump’s takeover of the institution all year, he said, which included the president replacing existing board members with his picks and announcing plans to personally host the Kennedy Center Honors.
“The rest followed on schedule,” said the comic writer, who describes himself on Instagram as a “creator of anti-fascist websites.”
While he is not ready to reveal his intended designs for his new websites, he said it will “absolutely reflect the absurdity of the moment. Lots of surprises. Some things are truly hard to parody, though.”
Once news broke that he bought the domain names, he told USA Today that he “received a large number of messages from creatives, writers, designers, and performers offering to contribute and help elevate what comes next.”
Mr. Morton told The Post that the Kennedy Center has always been a cultural institution meant to outlast any one administration or personality.
“It’s meant to honor culture, not ego,” he said. “Once it was treated like personal branding, satire became unavoidable.”
No one in the Trump administration has contacted him about his hybrid-name websites, he said, and no one has asked to buy them either.
In his own comedic fashion, Mr. Morton has bought political domains before, turning them into satirical websites, from fake campaign platforms to a MAGA dating website.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the subject of MTG2026.org, where he brands the Georgia Republican as a “fascist” who is “Building a Whiter Tomorrow.”
“I’m not here to govern; I’m here to liberate America from the shackles of common sense, accountability, and logic,” the website reads.
He owns ResignChuck.com, which belittles Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer.
“I’ve spent years perfecting the art of bowing, not to the people who elected me, but to the ones who bought the room,” it says.
Since Mr. Trump’s second term in office, the cartoon “South Park” has been making him and other political figures the butt of its jokes.
The show has mocked the president, even depicting him in a romantic relationship with Satan in its most recent season.
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of the hit Comedy Central series, told The New York Times that they included the president in the cartoon because of the Paramount-Skydance merger.
They said they felt pressure to “show our independence somehow” when Comedy Central’s parent company, Paramount, was in the process of merging with Skydance — a move that required approval from the Trump administration.
The merger was ultimately completed in August.
Wash Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2025/12/20/trump-kennedy-website/#selection-419.0-436.0
Morton’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wordclown/
