What is Donald Trump thinking about most of the time? To begin with, he’s traveling the nation now–mostly to red districts and red states–in hopes of holding on to unrestrained power. And he’s certainly on the lookout for opportunities to make more money, for himself and his children. There can never be enough money.

But his peculiar obsession is redecorating. He can’t leave anything alone. And he doesn’t want anyone to stop him once he gets a bee in his bonnet.

He tore down the East Wing of the White House last fall, on the day after the big No Kings Day, a sort of FU to the millions who joined protests against his peremptory rule. His response: I am a king, I don’t need no stinking approval by historical review boards or environmental review boards or anyone else. When a judge said he did need those approvals, he fired every member of those nonpartisan boards and stacked them with his sycophants and employees. Problem solved.

He’s following the same process with his other redecorating ideas: the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performjng Arts (which will close for two years because a judge wouldn’t let him become a co-equal with John F. Kennedy as an honoree of the memorial); the Lincoln Reflecting pool, the Arch of Trump, the painting of the granite Executive Office Building (experts have cautioned granite should not be painted).

Other changes, large and small, consume his time: turning the austere Oval Office into a gold-bedecked bordello; fencing in Lafayette Park, across from the White House; paving over Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden. Also, the Oval Office now has a very large sign in gold lettering, saying “The Oval Office.”

The latest manifestation of his redecoration of the nation’s Capitol is his plan to turn a popular public golf course into a championship course that would attract major PGA tournaments.

When environmental and civic groups heard about his plan, they sued to block it until there was proper vetting of the project. How would it affect the numerous trees on the site? Would the public still have access? Would it still be affordable to the people who live in the District?

The judge told the Interior Department and the National Park Service not to start this project without getting her approval. They delivered their plan at 5 pm on Friday before the Columbus Day weekend. The next day, nearly 500 mature trees were cut down. She was furious. Trump didn’t care. That’s the way he rolls.

James Fallows wrote about why this controversy matters. It removes important public facilities to replace them with his PGA GOLF COURSE.

Here is Fallows’ opening:

An image Donald Trump posted this morning, of his vision for the locally cherished East Potomac Park golf courses in DC. Last weekend, Trump operatives illegally cut down hundreds of mature trees on the courses. Today he announced plans to close the courses altogether next month, to convert them to a PGA venue. DC-ites will note that this plan entirely eliminates the famous bike and running path around the perimeter of Hains Point, which among other things is a featured part of the annual Marine Corps Marathon. (Trump posting.)….

When I put up my previous chronicle, a federal judge was throwing the book at MAGA officials from the White House, the Interior Department, and the National Park Service for their illegal, surprise-attack toppling of several hundred mature trees at East Potomac Park, in Washington. (Also known as Hains Point.) 

This desecration cut especially deep for people in the DC area, even when compared with … everything else. It’s not just that it will take another century to replace trees that were a hundred years old. It’s that Hains Point, which sits on the waters of the Potomac directly across from National Airport, and its park and recreation spaces have a unique place in DC community culture. 

The golf and tennis facilities are distinctly public, and open to all, for very low fees. You see a wide range of people using them: Golfers and tennis enthusiasts, young families pushing strollers, runners and bikers and skaters taking the multi-mile course around the whole Hains Point peninsula, bird-watchers and nature-lovers and so on. Notably, they come from the full range of DC’s population. And this is what Trump now wants to bulldoze and turn into “One of the Best and Most Spectacular Golf Courses anywhere in the World,” as he put it this morning in a post. 

In that post, he explicitly called out the new course’s appeal to the PGA tour and as a venue for golf’s “major” events. Toward that end, he said that the current courses would be closed altogether starting next month. “Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he concluded. Grrrrr.