The Ballroom
Puts Women Back in their Proper Place?
From a Google Image Search - BBC
Trump’s new ballroom offers us many messages from “Lord Goldemort” (thank you Brian Tyler Cohen) and his enablers in the Republican Party. Ballrooms bring to mind images of women in flowing gowns and men in tuxedos waltzing the night away. But if you have read Jane Austen or watched Bridgerton you know that many social things happen in ballrooms where wealthy and not so wealthy “coming-of-age” women are supposed to make a financially beneficial match (a rather refined version of the “meat market”). It’s easy to guess that a lot of other business was transacted in ballrooms and that will certainly be the case in Trump’s new dance hall, state dinner venue, MMA ring, or whatever. He will probably tell us all about it because his needy psyche requires it.
From a Google Image Search - PBS
Trump’s actions are symbolic of his total lack of regard for our historic roots, our veneration of our founders, and, well, women. By demolishing the East Wing, the history of women as first ladies becomes a meaningless pile of bricks, mortar, support beams; simply debris to be thrown in the ash can of history. It is first and foremost a perfect representation of this administration’s insistence that women should be submissive.
Since the House of Representatives has only met 12 times this session, and since we know that Trump should have consulted or at least informed Congress of the details of the ballroom construction project, we can assume that Congress is beside the point in Trump’s government. They could stay or leave DC; it makes no matter. The only role of Congress is to praise Trump and attempt to make it look like he is following regular order. But they can’t fool us. He has the numbers necessary to assume Congress will eventually do his bidding.
Michael Johnson, Speaker of the House has sold his soul to our dictator-in-chief. He believes in Project 2025 and, as an Evangelical, he wants a theocracy, especially a white nationalist theocracy. Still, how he can say the things he says on the media for everyone to hear, how he can say those things out of that scrubbed cherubic face, we cannot fathom or stomach.
Trump’s tear down of the East Wing for his ballroom, done amidst a government shutdown and with Congress on recess shows us the true role of Congress in Trump 2.0. Congress is simply an inconvenience, present only to satisfy the masses that there might still be some life in our democracy. Of course, it’s an illusion.
The ballroom construction reminds us that the traditions that add dignity to our democracy, such as submitting renovation plans to the proper agencies, are held in contempt by Trump as bureaucracy that doesn’t apply to him. Trump has added the people’s White House to his real estate portfolio, and we are supposed to be grateful that he is sprucing up the place, however trashy potentate the style might be. It is no longer the people’s House. It now belongs to the oligarchs and Trump’s friends will be treated like courtiers at the “king’s” entertainments. When I saw Trump in the halls of the Saudi King, I knew that he lusted to have just such a palace. Washington DC has always gone for humble, understated, down-to-earth. We entertained foreign leaders at Camp David, hardly posh. “Lord Goldemort” has a different plan. We know how he imagines himself to be young and handsome, virile and strong.
From a Google Image Search - Reddit
From a Google Image Search - Saudi palace - Yahoo
The demolition of the East Wing for Trump’s ballroom project reminds us that Trump is tasked by the Republicans to kiss “we the people” goodbye, or in his more vulgar vernacular, bury us in shite. It may be the plan of some wealthy oligarchs to decrease the world population by ignoring climate change and the needs of the less fortunate. It’s almost as sound a survivalist tactic as building a bunker. In fact, the media told us that there is a bunker under the East Wing. We had better learn to fend for ourselves is another message from Trump’s high-handed approach to getting his ballroom. And we might want to bend the knee once in a while, just saying.
The ballroom demolition is Trump doing the authoritarian playbook in real time, just replacing historic institutions with whatever reflects his personal brand. That Lord Goldemort nickname that Brian Tyler Cohen uses captures exactly what this is, someone who wants the trappings of royalty without any of the responsability that actual leaders carry. The East Wing erasure sends a clear mesage about where women fit in this vision, and the fact that he bypassed Congress entirely shows that even the performance of democratic process is too much effort. The Saudi palace envy has been obvious since day one, but watching him actualy remake the White House into his personal palace while pretending it's an upgrade is peak authoritarian aesthetics.