Trump Bulldozes the White House East Wing for a Ballroom

The White House East Wing gone. On a cloud of dust and controversy, bulldozers are clawing into American history. The East Wing of the White House, home to the First Lady's office and the Presidential Emergency Operations center, is being demolished to make way for President Trump's new 90,000 square foot ballroom. According to the New York Times and Reuters, Trump had promised, quote unquote, the White House itself won't be touched. But officials now say demolition was cheaper and more structurally sound. The price tag, $300 million, all privately funded, he claims. Critics call it heritage vandalism. The east wing, built in 1902 and redesigned by Franklin Roosevelt in 1942, hid the bunker used during 9, 11 and the 2020 protests. The National Trust for Historic Preservation says the new ballroom will dwarf the Executive Mansion, calling the move a desecration of a national landmark. Even some conservatives compare it to tearing down Monticello's wings or Mount Vernon's portico. History bulldozed for vanity. Okay, what's the real message here? There's a huge fundraising opposition for any Democratic candidate running for President in 2028. Send me $5 and I will use that to rebuild the White House as It was in 1902. We're going to tear down everything Trump has done to this White House, strip out every piece of gold, and restore the White House to the integrity it had just a few years ago. That is going to be a huge fundraising pitch for any Democrat running for president. Okay, let's dig a little deeper here. So with all the other problems in our country, is this the biggest problem? No, I'm not going to hold that out to you, but I do think this, this is a metaphor for really the destruction of our entire society, the destruction of our government, the destruction of the, the infrastructure of this nation. These two things. It's, it's tearing down the White House to put up some giant gold, tacky Mar a Lago double is one thing. And then President Trump putting out a video earlier this week or late last week with him in a jet flying over, dumping excrement on. On the American people and specifically the no Kings rally. Those two things, I think, tell you everything you need to really know about what's happening in Washington and this administration's attitudes towards history, towards tradition, towards the basic civic responsibility. Tear down the White House and dump excrement on the American public. At some level, you can appreciate the honesty of it. It's just right out there, naked. I'm taking a bulldozer to the US Government, to tradition, to separation of Powers, indeed, the White House. I'm just taking a bulldozer to it. There's a certain level of honesty there. I guess that's something you respect. Independent Senator Angus King says, quote, it's an insult to the American people. And he's not a Democrat or Republican. So this is not a bipartisan thing. I do feel strongly. You can't prove these things. I do feel strongly that if a President Biden or Obama or Clinton had tried this, the articles of impeachment would be drawn up in about 7 seconds. The vote in the House to charge with impeachment would happen in about six hours. If any other president did this. But now we live in a time where there is a stranglehold, where the current occupant has such command over members of his own party. They are so afraid to voice opposition, to be seen as disloyal, because they're afraid of that angry tweet or that angry truth social, which would then generate hundreds, if not thousands of death threats against them. They're afraid of him because I really do not think any Republican senator endorses this. In their heart, it's true. They're not speaking out about this because there's a lot of other stuff going on, but to see some. And folks, I'm not one of these architectural purists who says, well, once an old building is an old building, you can never touch it again. You can never. I'm not like that. But still deal. The White House, it's such a symbol of the United States, the United States government, the stability of the United States, the tradition of democracy. And I understand, you know, the White House was not built in 1776, and current version of it was really only finished in the last century. But still, to tear it down to build this giant ballroom for more parties and more people, I guess, who are going to stand up and give quotes about how Dear Leader is the greatest president in the history of the world and how he should serve forever and never leave office. That just seems a bit much to me now. So far, this president has not done anything to really anger his base, and I'll give him credit for that. President Trump is remarkable in his resiliency. As he famously said in his first campaign, I could go out and shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, kill them, and I wouldn't lose any votes. It seemed hyperbolic at the time. It's now proven to be correct for the most part. He hasn't done anything to really lose that 40% of the country that says we Hate the other guy so much. Anything you want to do that annoys them, we're all in. Nothing has really fundamentally changed that dynamic in American politics for the last decade. Even now, while some polls show the president's support dipping to 37%, and there are some Republican senators, like Ted Cruz and even Florida's own Senator Scott, now tepidly refusing to endorse every nominee from the administration, by and large, they're not openly hostile and criticizing him on a regular basis. And it is because, like, nine out of 10 Republicans still support him. Is this going to be the thing to finally tear away more support from this administration among Republicans? I don't think so. I don't think it's that galvanizing, but it's a piece of the puzzle. And Democrats, I think if they, they want to be a true opposition party, need to get better at grabbing on to symbolic moments like this in highly visual moments. The fact that they're not running ads 247 in social media ads and social media content showing again and again and again the wrecking ball hitting the White House, Trump dumping excrement on people, the fact that they're not showing those two things over and over and over again I think is a sign the Democrats are, are in some ways feckless or at least ineffective. They're not really doing what they need to do. And they don't understand the power of the symbolism here because these are powerful, powerful symbols. And believe you me, if the tables were turned, the top advertising mind, the top social media minds in the world would be all over this with Republicans mocking and vilifying a Democrat who literally took a wrecking ball to the White House, of all things. So we'll see. I sadly predict this issue is not going to get much bigger. And yes, there'll be some Democratic carping, but without that sustained pounding, without there being an echo chamber equivalent of the Fox News podcast Newsmax War Room that the right has, it's not going to really resonate. Now, some protesters have said, this is American Versailles. Now, the whole point of America is we don't have a King Louis XIV or any other king. We don't have the opulence of Versailles because our society is not based on the idea of one person being anointed by God to live in a wildly lavish way and everyone else live like a poor peasant. That's how France society was. That's why Versailles was built. And by the way, beautiful place. If you ever get a chance to go to Versailles, spend the day there, spend the evening there as well. It's a fantastic place, but it's not American. And Mar? A Lago is not America. But hey, a private individual wanting to decorate a house any way he wants, no matter how tacky, other people think that's free to. You have to have that in a free society. But you had to tear down a traditional American architectural gem like the White House to turn it into some tacky sort of gold covered, gilded Atlantic City casino. That might be the next thing. To go bankrupt just seems like a horrible, horrible idea.