In an October 3, 2025, article, Debbie Millman said this about the construction of a new ballroom in the East Wing of the White House: “Mr. Trump is showing the world that his presidency is a royal court where a select few are invited to pledge their allegiance. . . . For the last 200 years, the White House has been one of the strongest expressions of American democracy, a neoclassical reminder that the office of the presidency transcends any one person or party. . . . The nation’s most enduring building will be reshaped in the image of Mr. Trump, one defined by over-the-top opulence, exaggerated scale and a preference for size over subtlety. . . . sheer scale help[ing] to visually impose unreachable authority. And now Mr. Trump’s ballroom attempts to rescript the White House as an extension of the Trump brand, along with potential opportunities for like-minded corporations to donate funds in exchange for recognition of their own images. . . . Mr. Trump’s legacy as a president could lie less in policy than in the cultural logic he is advancing: the transformation of politics into branding, and of the nation into a stage set for performance. The White House ballroom, should it be completed, will stand as another symbol in the ongoing project of rebuilding American democracy in the image of one man’s brand.”
First of all, let me state that I like the White House as it is, a neoclassical building. It is stately and dignified, and its modesty befits the gravity of the office.
Second of all, I don’t think tearing out Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden was fine. The pavers are not elegant. It was petulant and patriarchal.
And as for the Ballroom, it will mess with the line of the White House complex, and Trump is being an IRK about that. What he should do is tear down the White House entirely and build the whole thing over in His image, or make a much BIGGER add-on, with the little white thing as a central feature of the rest of it in giant TRUMP. After all, when he tore down the old Bonwit Teller Building on 5th Avenue, did he save the limestone Art Deco reliefs, as promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Fat chance. No doubt the Metropolitan didn’t cough up the dough for such an extensive preservation, and how do you deal with limestone, anyway? It falls apart in the average kitchen.
Ms. Millman is being a bit ingenuous about this. She doesn’t really present Trump. Many oligarchs refuse to run for office because it is an impediment to an awful lot of their lives. In many ways, Trump Tower IS more valuable than the White House, which is currently a bauble for the Corridors of Power.
Then there is the whole question of what is done in such a ballroom.
Rich people throw very large parties, and they throw a lot of them. In major cities, the wealthy go from party to party and are constantly at big parties with dinners and large spaces where congregating and occasional dancing take place. It is what they do to maintain their connections. In order to function in their place in society, they have to interact with each other and with the various traveling sorts of their class all the time, catch up on what is going on everywhere with everyone who is ANYONE, and constantly maneuver in it. It is how much of the business of the world is conducted.
This is a social milieu in which being an introvert like Obama doesn’t help quite as much. Yes, Trump can study, but he is far better at “studying” in conversation with those who sat down with books and do important jobs. That is not to say he is stupid. That is to say his style of learning is expensive and dependent upon the mobilization of the people he needs.
He works the primate bodymindsoul of humanity, and, for that, he does need to look you in the eye.
My father used to attend political-ish Latino events four or five nights a week. He knew everyone in Houston. He used his connections lightly, but it was part of his life to be “in the swim.” That is how I am a bit diffident about Ms. Millman’s very fine article. Those big parties are not as “exclusive” as she is portraying. In fact, it is very much the point to get a mix of all kinds of people, concentrating on “the right sort,” but if you have the capacity to function at that level “in the swim,” they WANT you to be there once in a while. They need every influential person in town to be known by them and placed within the lines of influence and action. I predict that if Trump has a third term, someone reading this blog will be invited to that ballroom.
When I was young, I supported myself in the arts by selling upscale menswear. We used to have obligatory copies of Vanity Fair and W hanging around the place to keep up on fashion. Even then I remember Donald and his then-wife Ivana Trump in all of the society pages. They were the “it” pair in New York.
Donald Trump has spent his entire life socializing with people all over the world. He knows everyone. In many ways, it IS his turn to be President, if it is up for grabs by someone who isn’t so very puritanical, and that is how he got there. He did it by working the power tribe and becoming a household name in the most impressionable sector, whom he is taunting.
He is very adroit at playing right wing media and being a buffoon. He is no fool. But he is playing it in such a way as to break the Presidency for anyone like him. No one should be able to waltz into Washington and become the President without really being part of the political establishment. Trump is tipping his hat at that.
His Presidency is floundering. He is not able to “work it” optimally so far from his palaces, and probably knows that he always got important and unpredictable things done at the parties. Without the Ballroom, he doesn’t have his loosy-goosy festive scene where he and his people can massage more of the people they need to. State dinners, yes, but stuffy is not his natural style — he needs the swanky thing where ALL KINDS of people show up, connect, and he and his team end up WORKING IT. That is not happening in the White House, and it needs to if his Presidency is going to work out.
The Ballroom is a tool, and that should be respected.
Donald Trump is a social genius, but he is not as knowledgeable about government as Clinton and not a clean patrician like Bush.
Our country is in a very difficult moment, and we do need to address it. At the same time, if the Republican Party is really so debased that it will allow the Corridors of Power to SMIRK at our democracy, to enable a big-money developer showman from a fiendish television show to walk in and take the top office, with absolutely no experience as an elected official and no real check on his power executed by them, then they get what they deserve, and it might very well be a blue wave.
Or it might be a coup d’état.
After all, when you want to talk to all of the BIG BRASS of the United States DEFENSE, you have to fly them in from all over the world, where they are not able to defend the very thing that they are supposed to. The idea that “our cities will become training grounds for our military” is something that should have happened a long time ago. Our customary defense, that of geography, is simply not viable anymore, when an invading army could be flown in in a few hours and, using sophisticated technology, take over the entire West Coast, which is about 70% of the economy, right?
There is this recent invention called GASOLINE that just changes everything, and the American government should get with the times on that.
Portland may not be a hellish war zone this very moment, but by this time tomorrow, it could really be.
At the same time, what is Portland? It is the principal American home city of Intel, a leading maker of computer chips that the American government now owns 10% stake in. It is an Israeli company, many of its employees are Israelis, and Israel is, indeed, a hellish war zone that is extremely unpopular worldwide–and with reason. At the same time, blowing up Hillsboro is a crap. No doubt the money tribe would not be as unhappy with the Marines hanging around as the general populace.
President Trump may very well be crazy, it looks that way, and, if so, we are kind of heading toward the configuration of SCREWED. No President has ever acted like this. This is so far out of Presidential culture that, as brilliant as he may be, he may not be able to adequately predict outcomes when he is doing things with a giant system that are so very different from what has been done for decades. We are off the map. And that is why we SHOULD grab a “No Kings in America” sign and take to the streets — or something like it. That is OUR ticket into the Golden Ballroom.
At least his staff is full of hot young blonde women, and it is fun to look at them running the country.
Is Trump Hitler or not? There is no pat answer for this.
Building the Underworld 