The demolition of the East Wing of the White House, a metaphor for Trump's power
The offices of the First Lady of the White House, destroyed; the private movie theater of the American presidents, razed; the garden dedicated to Jacqueline Kennedy, reduced to rubble; the entrance to the East Wing, where suffragettes campaigned for women's right to vote between January 1917 and June 1919, annihilated; and the hall where Pau Casals played for John F. Kennedy, now reduced to dust and debris: this is how what Betty Ford, wife of Gerald Ford—the vice president who succeeded Nixon after Watergate—called the "heart" of the White House has disappeared.
The East Wing acquired its functional and symbolic character under the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1942, he expanded the building to cover a bunker and add offices, transforming the East Terrace lobby into the private movie theater. For more than eighty years, the new space hosted the activities of the first ladies, from combating drug addiction and promoting reading to planning state luncheons and annual parties.
President Donald Trump's bulldozers have ruthlessly crushed this "heart." Now It will be replaced by a gigantic 8,000 square meter ballroom. —60% larger than the White House—capable of hosting 999 guests and foreign dignitaries. Trump justifies the demolition by saying that future presidents will benefit from the building as a site for high-level receptions and diplomacy.
It is true that the current ballroom only accommodates about 250 people and that, for larger events, tents have to be set up in the gardens, which is not always convenient. But the scale of the project far exceeds any practical need and turns the space into a stage for his personal protagonism. Thus, the seat of government, considered "the people's house," now risks becoming a stage for presidential megalomania, far removed from the humility and democratic spirit that the building has traditionally represented.
The lies about the project
From day one, Trump ignored the rules and lied about the scope of the project, claiming the hall would not touch the East Wing. Its demolition was carried out without the approval of the National Capital Planning Commission and after he removed the members of the Plastic Arts Commission, which advises on the preservation of federal heritage.
These days, an increasingly unsurprising editorial from The Washington Post It has been quick to find virtues in the demolition. The newspaper acknowledges that "many see in the rubble a metaphor for Trump's reckless disregard for rules and the rule of law," but adds that "others see what they love about him: a lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision." With this, the newspaper that helped bring down a president begins a defense of the $300 million hall, financed by private donations, including those from Jeff Bezos, owner of the newspaper and Amazon. who recently interfered with the editorial line to benefit Trump
In the ten months of his second term, Trump has ignored Congress, governed by decree, threatened foreign companies and governments, and has extorted universitiesThe separation of powers, so cherished in the American political system, is crumbling under a president with no limits. Trump supporters celebrate their revenge, but a growing majority of Americans dislike what they see: a country that confuses firmness with brutality and reform with destruction. Perhaps there has never been a better metaphor for a presidency.
