South Park Author Snagged ‘Trump-Kennedy Middle’ Internet Domains Months In the past

Final week, in a second of spontaneous pleasure and enthusiasm, the board of the Kennedy Middle in Washington voted on a change to the constructing’s title. One allegedly unanimous determination later, the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Middle for the Performing Arts was born. The Middle’s directors, displaying outstanding foresight, have been able to put the choice into motion instantly: barely 24 hours later, staff have been already busy adding Trump’s name to the constructing’s façade.

The Middle’s website additionally already displays the title change—however quibblers would possibly be aware that the positioning’s precise area doesn’t. It stays “kennedy-center.org”. There’s a cause for this: the domains “trumpkennedycenter.org” and “trumpkennedycenter.com” are already taken. They’re owned by comic and scriptwriter Toby Morton, who has written for South Park and Mad TV. In his downtime, Morton has made a behavior of buying official-sounding domains for satirical functions: he already owns round 50 such websites, together with nancymace26.com (“I don’t legislate, I litigate grudges”) and mtg2026.org (“Constructing a whiter tomorrow!”).

Morton told the Washington Post that he has one thing related deliberate for these domains: “[They will] completely mirror the absurdity of the second,” he promised. In a second of clairvoyance, he bought them earlier this 12 months after Trump announced that he was firing the Middle’s complete board. (“We’ll quickly announce a brand new Board,” the President wrote on Truth Social on the time, including that the brand new board would characteristic “an incredible Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”)

“As quickly as Trump started gutting the … board earlier this 12 months,” Morton mentioned, “I assumed, ‘Yep, that title’s happening the constructing.’” And whereas he definitely wasn’t alone in predicting that the wonderful Chairman’s ego would demand formal recognition, Morton’s key perception was that even Trump’s hand-picked board wouldn’t fairly have the gumption to completely exchange Kennedy’s title. As a substitute, they settled on the equal of a kind of double-barreled surnames that serve to kick the query of nomenclature down the highway for an additional era.

The awkward new moniker is already subject to legal challenge, so it’s unclear whether or not it is going to outlast Trump’s tenure within the White Home, however within the quick time period, it appears to be right here to remain. You’d assume this might be excellent news for Morton, if nobody else—however for now, neither trumpkennedycenter.org nor trumpkennedycenter.com shows any content material. The comic is outwardly working up towards the identical downside as many different writers right this moment: it’s awfully tough to satirize an period during which every single day already seems like dwelling in The Onion. “Some issues,” he concluded ruefully, “are actually onerous to parody.”