The new East-Wing ballroom will be fit for a king.
Donald Trump's grandiosity makes an impression. He creates a 21st Century version of what circus showman P.T. Barnum called "The Greatest Show on Earth." Not just great. The greatest. In Trump's election-eve campaign speech in November, 2024 he told the enthusiastic crowd that the border patrol gave him "the strongest, the strongest endorsement you’ve ever heard." Trump continued:
They said, “He’s the greatest president in history."
And I said to them, "does that mean I am greater than Abraham Lincoln and George Washington?'"
They said "Yes, sir, you’re better than both of them."
The greatest. Like the steaks. Like the new ballroom.
A serious-minded observer has reason to worry about this second-Trump term. He is unconstrained. He gets to express his desire for more. His taste in home and office decoration is the least dangerous of the various ways this president can express his love of boundless grandiosity. No amount of gold is too much. So what? America can survive his crass taste in architecture and furnishings. Some Americans probably share his taste.
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| Trump's New York home in Trump Tower |
Democrats of refined sensibilities likely look at this and see behavior beyond parody, like the uniforms of African and Latin American dictators. Idi Amin didn't know when to stop. There was no "enough" on self-congratulatory medals.
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| Idi Amin, Ugandan dictator |
Trump’s crass, venal, over-the-top willfulness sends a message that touches a part of the American psyche. Democrats find him dangerous and disgusting, but they need to recognize that he is giving a great many Americans something they like. He is entertaining. He is bigger than life. He is like a movie action-figure. Some would say hero; some would say anti-hero. But either way he is free to enjoy glorious, boundless excess of consumption and cruelty. The ballroom design is a message: more, more, more. (The ballroom destruction is another, which I will describe tomorrow.)
Trump projects the liberation of dreams, where one can fly. Anyone who enters Costco gets a bit of the experience. There are giant piles of shirts and sweaters. There are huge stacks of food in huge packages on top of pallets of yet more. It is bottomless. So much stuff! Cornucopia! Milk and honey! Our cups runneth over!
Trump taste for gross excess is natural to him. It is a performance, but an honest one from him. Trump is sending a message many Americans like, and it is rooted in the idea of American greatness. He continues the frontier ethic. Free land for the taking. The world is spread out like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Take it all. Gold! Land! Sex!
Canada and Greenland, too.
Boats in the Caribbean? Blow them to smithereens. They are nobodies and his to waste.
Trump doesn’t let goody-goody feminized taste-makers tell him to exercise restraint, or respect historic traditions, or obey rules regarding manners or fairness or even the Geneva Convention. He shows that Americans can do what they will, if they are in sync with what Trump wants. Trump is free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, he is free at last. Congress sure the heck can’t stop him.
And he is damned well going to make every last use of that freedom. He is going to build what he wants, take what he wants, and screw Democrats and RINOs and anyone else who gets in his way. There is no “too much.” The ballroom proves that.
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7 comments:
Alas, he is mortal nearing the end of his selfish life, lacking in true love from family and friendship, so in my eyes he is poor.
Well, GOATs are symbols for the devil.
“He is entertaining” says it all.
As Maximus asks in that famous line in Gladiator “Are you not entertained?" Then says “What we do in life echoes in eternity" and so it will be.
Yes, we know. Not sure why the men (for the most part) who write these blogs feel the need to insult females on a regular basis. Perhaps it makes you feel tough, masculine and "outlaw."
So I will return the favor. In addition to being repulsive, disgusting, crass, uncouth and uncultured, he is the living definition of toxic masculinity.
On this Sunday, when Real Christians are supposed to be thinking about Jesus and his ministry, let's pause and think about the 42 Million Americans who are about to lose their Food assistance, starting November 1, 20025, because of the government shutdown, the USDA refusing to use its contingency funds and, also, new rules that are cutting millions from the program. Why don't you write about that?
Have a nice day and enjoy your food.
Let's not be unkind to innocent goats.
I have no idea why "unknown" thought it appropriate to make a generalization about the gender of who "write these blogs" or that females are regularly insulted. About half the blogs I read are written by women. The gendered insult right here is the only gendered insult I can recall. Possibly it was written by a fellow; I don't know.
The author's point about real Christians is a good one -- obscured and negated by how the author started the post. This is a good, instructive example of one of the themes of this blog: that much political communication is self sabotaging. It backfires. You cannot persuasively say, "you should love your neighbor, you miserable, disgusting misogynist."
These tacky pictures conjure hotel suites in Las Vegas or, more aptly, Atlantic City. Gold leaf, like jet poop.
The new would-be Last King of Scotland craves his own chestful or roomful of decorations and awards.
Washington and Lincoln were serious thinkers and selfless public servants. So were most of the rest.
Defining degradation down? Hyperions to a satyr? And that's an insult to Hamlet's "satyr", Claudius.
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