Offensive. Vulgar. Divisive. Steeped in corruption. Flouting laws and regulation. Showing utter contempt for the needs of the American people to benefit an elite few.
It is almost impossible to imagine a more fitting monument to President Donald J. Trump than the giant, gilded middle finger that will soon rise from the rubble of the East Wing of the White House.
The billionaire president, who has devoted his second term to providing tax cuts, regulatory gifts and sweetheart deals to his billionaire constituents, is building a glittering ballroom no one needs or wants. There, America’s elite and their pals visiting from around the world can sip champagne while, across our country, hungry families lose their food aid and their healthcare, debts pile up and we all lose basic rights.
Pick your historical metaphor: Nero fiddling in his gold-encrusted palaces. The Bourbon kings of France living in luxury while their subjects starved. The white marble and gold of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan, built by a kleptocrat dictator so afraid of his people that the city is largely empty, one of the modern world’s stark tributes to vainglorious leadership.
I could also mention Adolf Hitler’s obsession with monumentalist architecture, too, but wouldn’t that be inflammatory? Well, not if I were a young Republican, a MAGA appointee or a Democratic candidate with an SS tattoo on my chest, it turns out. Surely, JD Vance or some pod bro somewhere would come to my defense and say, as we seem to be saying more often these days, “What’s a little Naziism between friends?”
As illuminating as historical echoes might be, Trump’s master builder moment—which also includes remodeling the Oval Office to look like Liberace’s boudoir and constructing a giant triumphal arch because, well, kings and emperors build triumphal arches—comes at a tellingly inauspicious moment.
While bulldozers raze the historic East Wing in its entirety, the U.S. government is shut down. Trump has somehow found a way to pay demolition men and architects, but not the men and women who are working to serve the country and provide vital services.
On the issue of funding the project to the tune of some $300 million, Trump at first said he would pay for it himself—but of course, that was never going to happen. He has been famous for decades for making promises and then not delivering.
Then he said he might pay for it using the money he was demanding the Department of Justice pay him as compensation for its wholly legal and totally justified investigations into his mishandling of national secrets and his alleged efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election. But that won’t happen either, certainly not if there is the slightest chance he can pocket that money.
Rather, a bunch of fat cat donors and corporations will pay for the ballroom for the same corrupt reason that they paid for his inauguration or gave in to his groundless lawsuits and settled for big bucks: Because cash on the barrelhead is the best way to get the attention of this administration. Though in the interest of fairness, I would add that generally this is true for all administrations and that money is the toxin that is killing American democracy. Both parties. All three branches of government.