"It's long been evident that the MAGA siege on American governance is a glorified wrecking job, but this week's installment has been just a little too on-the-nose: After pledging not to molest the White House in the process of constructing a $250 million ballroom addition seemingly cribbed from the gaudier reaches of Versailles, President Donald Trump has now approved the demolition of the structure's entire east wing."
"The reckless lurch into gilded ruination has triggered a chorus of denunciations from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to Never Trump defenses of "the People's House" (a characterization undercut considerably by the use of slave labor to build it) to a show of civic dudgeon from former East Wing occupant Hillary Clinton (which provoked just as predictable bouts of outrage from the right)."
"It's true that, even by Trump's standards, the literal destruction of the White House is an unusually brazen show of Caligulan impunity. Yet as has been so often the case over the past decade of MAGA-branded pillaging of our public sphere, critics in and around the house of liberalism are left sputtering and huffing before the specter of Trump simply being Trump-which is to say, leveraging every resource at his disposal to promote his own crass and venal self-interest."
"It wasn't all that long ago that such a massive blindspot in the American body politic would have been unthinkable. The Watergate scandal, and the arguably more damning findings of the Church committee's inquiry into abuses in the US intelligence community, together with the Vietnam War's corrosive legacy, spurred a healthy backlash in public opinion against what Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called the imperial presidency."
President Donald Trump approved demolition of the White House east wing after promising not to damage the residence during construction of a $250 million ballroom addition. The project evokes Versailles-style opulence and has prompted denunciations from preservationists and critics across the political spectrum. Criticism ranged from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to Never Trump defenders and public figures like Hillary Clinton. The demolition is described as an unusually brazen act of impunity even by Trump’s standards. The action illustrates a broader pattern of using executive authority to advance personal interests and degrade public institutions. Public and institutional checks on executive corruption have weakened since the post-Watergate reforms, inquiries into intelligence abuses, and the Vietnam War's corrosive legacy.
Read at The Nation
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