I have been to the White House on several occasions. I first went there for a State Dinner in 1965 when Lyndon B. Johnson was President. I was there as a guest on several other occasions. Every time, I was in awe, star-struck. I felt as though I was walking on hallowed ground. I tried to hold onto every minute, wishing I could stop time.
And now a coarse vulgarian lives there, who has horrible taste. He paved over the Rose Garden. He hung gold-sprayed shlock from Walmart all over the Oval Office.
And now he is demolishing the East Wing to replace it with a ballroom for 999 people. The ballroom will be larger than the White House.
Trump doesn’t understand that the White House belongs to the people, not to him.
He said that the ballroom would not interfere with the White House. He lied.
He has no respect for the White House or its history.
This makes me sad. It makes me sick.
He waited until after #NoKings Day to desecrate the People’s House.
Donald Trump is a vandal.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
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#TrumpsRainOfDestructionAndDefecationOnTheRuleOfLaw
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#TodaysAcronym ☞ #TRODADOTROL#TrumpsRainOfDestructionAndDefecationOnTheRuleOfLaw
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I felt the same way. It felt almost like an assault on history and democracy. If Trump gets to build his hideous arch, it will be a permanent monument to a time when this country caved to the “know nothings.”
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Welcome to Gaza.
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via Alt National Park Service on FB —
We’ve received a lot of questions about Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing.
Here’s how the process is supposed to work:
Historic Review: The NPS, as custodian of the White House under the Presidential Residence Act and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), must review all alterations for compliance with Section 106 of the NHPA. This requires assessing potential impacts on historic and cultural resources in consultation with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) and the D.C. State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO).
Planning & Environmental Oversight: The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) evaluates all major federal projects in the National Capital Region, including work on the White House grounds, for design, planning, and environmental impacts under NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act). Public comment and design reviews are part of that process.
Aesthetic Review: The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) reviews and advises on the design and appearance of any exterior modifications to the White House or its grounds.
Final Authorization: After approvals from NPS, NCPC, and CFA, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the White House Chief Usher / Facilities Management Office finalize funding, scheduling, and logistics.
Only after completing this full process could any major construction or demolition legally begin.
Yet Trump ignored every step, acting unilaterally through executive order, bypassing oversight, and ordering demolition as if he were a monarch. The result: the people’s house, altered without the people’s consent.
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He probably did it this way and now so that he could blame it all on the Government Shut Down and Democrats.
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Reminds me of The Lorax. Like, yeah, till everything is gone. Very upsetting to see history demolished.
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And since the WH is an historical landmark, the Idiot in Chief cannot just do what he wants with it. Of course, there is no enforcement procedures for such violations because what kind of asshole would demolish part of the WH?
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And since the WH is an historical landmark, the Idiot in Chief cannot just do what he wants with it. Of course, there is no enforcement procedures for such violations because what kind of asshole would demolish part of the WH?
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And since the WH is an historical landmark, the Idiot in Chief cannot just do what he wants with it. Of course, there is no enforcement procedures for such violations because what kind of asshole would demolish part of the WH?
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Maybe a billionaire like Tom Steyer, who hates Trump, would be willing to organize a fund to pay for the restoration of the White House, starting on day one of the next Democratic president’s term.
The project would tear down the ballroom, reconstruct the East Wing, and restore the Rose Garden. Plans for both are likely in the National Archives. It could also restore the Oval Office after removing all the gaudy trinkets.
Anyone up for a letter writing campaign? What other billionaires hate Trump?
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Uh, Jay Priztker, Illinois Governor. Yes!
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Just like he’s demolishing our Constitution.
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A vandal. Precisely. It’s going to cost the country a lot to undo the damage this horrible vulgarian has done.
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Before the country can undo that damage, we have to get rid of the Nazi fascist, his klepto-kakistocracy regime, and the MAGA hate cult. They must be gone for good forever, or nothing will get done to set things right.
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The WH demolition is staggering symbolism of the lying (ballroom would be separate from existing structure), ignoring policy and procedure, and indifference to history, tradition, and respect.
Four images from the past week scream volumes at the 8-month benchmark of this regime – symbolically and in-our-face reality – particularly when placed side by side with previous images and their respective stories
Demolition of the White House side by side with images of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Picture of the moment a U.S. Hell-fire missile struck a Venezuelan boat alongside picture of masked ICE troopers taking a child from a parent
Time Magazine cover alongside (take your pick) images of the closed fist half-salute and particular others.
8 million (EIGHT MILLION) people peacefully protesting dozens of hurtful & dangerous effects of this regime’s decisions and actions side-by-side with pictures of the infamous birthday parade half-empty bleachers.
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Sickening comes close but doesn’t include expressing the outrage. I couldn’t sleep.
First he lied. Then he totally circumvented the procedures for getting the project properly okayed.
And the upcoming Arc de Trump
And, unbelievably: he’s serious about carving his bloated, entitled, moronic face on Mount Rushmore!
This is Mussolini. Where are the cowards on the red side of the aisle when you need them the most? There’s no excuse for this.
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Ya gotta adore this kind of truth telling from Andy Borowitz today:
Demolition Man
Oct 22
Not since the War of 1812 has an enemy of the United States caused this much damage to the White House. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Donald Trump’s decision to reduce a major chunk of the White House to rubble is shocking, but not surprising. Shocking, because no other occupant of “The People’s House” ever treated it as if it belonged to him; but not surprising, because the Trump family has a long history of desecrating landmarks.
Trump learned everything he knows about real estate from his father, Fred Trump—and much of what he knows about wanton vandalism. Steeplechase Park was one of the most beloved amusement parks in Coney Island, Brooklyn. In 1966, after Trump’s dad acquired the property (accompanied by nineteen-year-old Donald at the signing ceremony), with plans to demolish it and build residential units, outraged citizens attempted to save it by applying to have it designated as a landmark.
Before Steeplechase’s landmark status could be certified, however, Fred Trump organized a “demolition party” at which he urged a mob to smash the glass facade of the park’s Pavilion of Fun. “Trump sent out engraved invitations and invited people to throw rocks and bricks through the Funny Face—it was a desecration of an icon, it was insane,” Charles Denson, the Coney Island History Project’s executive director, told the Brooklyn Paper. “Most developers are worried about making a profit, most wouldn’t throw a party to desecrate a stained-glass window.”
Donald Trump would continue his father’s proud tradition of gleeful destruction when he demolished the Bonwit Teller Building on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue to clear the site for Trump Tower. After saying he’d try to preserve the building’s priceless Art Deco friezes so that they could be exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Trump discovered that it would cost $32,000 to remove them intact. As a clever solution to his problem, he had his workmen smash them to bits.
The trashing of the Bonwit friezes, as reprehensible as it was, is nothing compared to Trump’s most ambitious act of architectural desecration: the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. According to a report by the General Accounting Office, the January 6 assault resulted in property damage totaling $2.7 billion, a cost to be borne by American taxpayers.
Having taken a wrecking ball to the buildings housing two branches of government, one wonders if Trump’s next renovation project will involve destroying the Supreme Court. But John Roberts is already hard at work on that.
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Great comment, ECE! I had forgotten about the Bonwit Teller friezes.
He has a history as a vandal.
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This is reminding me of Mussolini’s “typewriter building,” the Vittoriano, in the center of Rome. It wasn’t really Mussolini’s building. It was built in honor of the consolidation of Italy’s city-states into a nation (under king Victor Emmanuelle II), constructed between 1885-1935—requiring the demolition of numerous buildings dating back to the Middle Ages and to ancient Roman times.
Ancient streets and their neighborhoods were demolished so as to create a virtual causeway avenue to this monument, so it could be viewed from afar. AND—before construction was completed– Mussolini and his fascist regime came to power in 1922. He appropriated the Vittoriano as a symbol of his fascist regime, distorting the original intent of its unifying and strengthening symbolism. The Vittoriano was covered by Fascist symbols and became associated with Fascist ideology which was at odds with the original spirit of the bldg’s original symbolism, and is still today associated with fascism to Italians.
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p.s. let us hope & pray that in future, this desecration of the WH— if it stands (& is not rebuilt)— stands as a memorial to a brief authoritarian regime that, like Mussolini’s, was stamped out, remaining as a reminder to democracy’s citizens to what happens when a democratic nation allows itself to be undermined by an authoritarian regime.
That this was allowed via executive order, breaching multiple national regs as detailed by Jon Awbrey above, demonstrates the need for shoring up regs by converting them to Congressional legislation— echoing the need to legislate heretofore political “norms,” as well as to require quick court stays on breaches of any legislation before a rogue executive branch can begin to undermine democracy via “EO’s.”
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Actually, this should come as no surprise because in his first term, in 2017, he called the White House “a real dump,” so he has no appreciation whatsoever of the place, it’s history or it’s meaningfulness to Americans and WH staff.
See “Former White House Residence Staff Appalled by Donald Trump’s ‘Real Dump’ Comment:” https://time.com/4884923/white-house-donald-trump-dump/ When
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