Or perhaps he'll stick the taxpayers with the bill in the end.In the mid-18th century, as the Russian people starved and suffered, a grand palace was going up in St. Petersburg. It didn’t matter that the country’s finances were strapped and that the unpopular Seven Years War was waging across Europe. Empress Elisabeth was determined to complete her Winter Palace. Worse, she was making her own people help foot the bill.
To the serfs and merchants, the Winter Palace represented everything that was wrong with the empire: overly extravagant, grotesquely opulent and a slap in the face to their daily hardships. But to the empress, the palace represented prestige and untouchable power — and just how far she would go to keep it.
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Forget governing: The government remains shut down, federal employees are losing their jobs, and funding for social programs is about to run out. But of course, King Trump is more concerned about building his ballroom. This is no mistake.
The pictures that came out of Monday’s demolition weren’t a mistake either. Because Trump didn’t just break ground on the ballroom. He broke into the White House — literally. Trucks tore into the facade of the East Wing for the sake of Trump’s vanity project, destroying the historic House that’s supposed to belong to the people. The president initially claimed the ballroom’s construction wouldn't touch the East Wing, but like most things that come out of Trump’s mouth, that was clearly a lie.
Let me be clear. This demolition is a message: The White House is no longer the People’s House. It is now Trump’s House.
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Clearly, Trump didn’t go through the proper channels to get this done. While Trump claims that he will pay for a portion of the ballroom himself, that is almost certainly not true.
He has already admitted that anonymous donors will spend $20 million to complete the project. These names may not be public, but it’s safe to assume he knows who they are. The rest of us are left to assume it’s the usual crowd: tech oligarchs who are greedy for favors, corporate giants looking to expand their seedy empires, and long-time Republican donors seeking power and influence.
Democracy Docket
Even more concerning is what this project means for free and fair elections. Trump’s ballroom isn’t the work of a man who plans to pack his bags and get on a plane to Florida in January 2029. He is not generous enough to build something that will benefit the country and presidents to come. He’s building the ballroom for himself, and he’s planning to stay put to enjoy it.
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He’s not simply modernizing the kitchen or swapping out the bathroom tile. Trump is destroying our house and turning it into his own.
Trump wants to be a king. Now, he’s building his palace.
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