I remember being told it was a serious thing Cracker Barrel took that old man off its signs. Now a section of the White House is gone and the same people are saying who cares. I never thought much about the East Wing. I couldn’t discuss its shortcomings or advantages. But today, looking at events, I think I kind of counted on it not being taken away all of a sudden. I counted on no part of the White House just being mashed flat. Now… gee. And after Trump said he’d leave it.
We always hear the office isn’t the man, and this is a great example. Donald Trump’s using that office to stage a raid. No government money’s behind the teardown, and nobody but Trump wanted the teardown to happen. It could go forward simply because he’s the resident of the White House and decides who gets to come in with their bulldozers. The heart of the physical territory that belongs to the people, to the federal government, to the idea that there’s some national authority that governs us all and, on the whole, ought to—that little heartland is now in Trump’s hands and it just got mussed up.
Terrorists aim at places that a functioning government ought to be able to protect; it’s their way of showing that the government no longer rules. Trump’s showing us that he personally, not the government, has control of the White House complex, and he’s showing this the way a dog demonstrates mastery of a fire hydrant. The dog’s wrong and I hope Trump is too, but in the meantime what a smell.
Trump wants to put a gilt-edged giant ballroom in the East Wing’s place. He says that, all in all, the project will cost $300 million or so; before he said it would be $200 million. So far the money has come from big corporations and very wealthy individuals and has gone through a nonprofit called the Trust for the National Mall. “Some business lobbyists said that donating to the Trust for the National Mall was a good way to curry favor with the administration without giving to an explicitly political committee,” The Wall Street Journal tells us. The Journal also says Trump isn’t breaking the law with his demolition. Until now no president has decided to go ahead and just flatten a section of the building, but there’s nothing to say he can’t. Oversight comes in when Trump has to put something in the East Wing’s place. The plans for the ballroom must go before two separate bodies. One is entirely appointed by Trump, the other is now under Republican control because he fired three Democratic appointees and replaced them.
The firings were in July, and at the end of the month Trump announced that the area near the East Wing would see some building activity. “It won’t interfere with the current building,” he said then. “It’ll be near it, but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.” Now he says the East Wing’s gone and good riddance: “It was never thought of as being much. It was a very small building.” Son of a bitch.