FROM GRANDEUR TO GRANDIOSITY

The desecration of the White House

Rendering from the WhiteHouse.gov announcement

One of the things I’ve always liked most about the White House is its size. It’s grand, but not grandiose. It was built to be the president’s mansion, not a king’s palace. As an American I’ve always been proud of that. It’s a perfect reflection of an American ideal.

But then you-know-who came along, and for the very reasons I’ve loved the White House he finds it inadequate. It’s not palatial enough for his taste. The current White House, which is roughly 55,000 square feet, will now be dwarfed by a 90,000 square foot ballroom added to the East Wing of the building. This will permanently change both the building’s structure and the character.

All of this, by the way, is totally unnecessary. While the President claims the ballroom is needed to host our State Dinners, I’ve never heard anyone echo his opinion that the tent set up for such occasions is “unsightly.” Note, this isn’t a tent like you use when you go hiking in Yosemite. It’s more like the tent that housed Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding reception. Trump isn’t doing this because what was already there was inadequate. He’s doing it as a part of a larger strategy to impose his fingerprints on everything he can get his hands on. Donald Trumps wants us to forget the America that existed before he got here. This is not a president who respects our history; his wish is to rewrite it.

Earlier today I drove past the White House and saw the new flag poles the President has installed. The normal sized flag that used to stand astride the top of the mansion has been replaced by two gargantuan flagpoles, each 100 feet high, with those oversized flaged you often see in front of car dealerships. So much for the simple grandeur that used to express so eloquently who we are.

The President knows he can’t put a huge TRUMP sign above the front door of the North Portico, so he’s doing what he thinks is the next best thing. He wants to live in a place worthy of kings…or of dictators. Someone said to me, “Well, but the King of England lives in a palace!” And that’s the point. The King of England, who is only a figurehead, lives in a palace. England’s Prime Minister, who runs the government, lives in the relative simplicity of 10 Downing Street.

In his book Inside the Third Reich, Hitler’s architect Albert Speer cites Hitler telling him that after the war he wanted to rebuild Berlin along the lines of Paris…only much bigger. He wanted a boulevard like the Champs Elysees, at one end of which there would be a great palace like the Louvre and and at the other end an Arch de Triumph…only all of them much bigger. Speer pointed out that a decline in civilization is often accompanied by oversized art and architecture….a moving away from the natural order of things. He used the example of ancient Roman sculpture being oversized, while ancient Greek sculpture was life-sized. I read that book when I was in college and I never forgot it.

By the way, have you seen the Jacqueline Kennedy Rose Garden since it’s been paved over? Grass is just so yesterday.

And so will be our democracy, if we don’t raise hell. Our voices are the only power we have to stop construction on the new ballroom. But public pressure does matter. (And don’t think for a minute there won’t be Trump rallies held there. Of course there will be, regardless of the fact that the Hatch Act forbids it. His behavior during his first administration nearly ensures it.)

We need to make a lot of noise. Write a letter to an editor. Make a video. Create a meme. Spread the word. Contact your Congresspeople - and best to do it now.

We are all so tired of this, I know. But they’re counting on our fatigue to quiet us. We must not go down this way. The White House as a building is just a symbol, of course, but it’s a symbol that matters. And unless we are willing to stand up for what matters, our very lives no longer do.

(Note about the architectural rendering posted above: I assume it was created as a winter scene - highly unusual for a design rendering - in order to visually minimize the radical nature of the reconstruction.)