Trump’s décor sense is a reflection of himself: gross, cheap, tacky – choose your personal descriptor. The overblown gold embellishments in the Oval Orifice, and any of his developments for that matter, make it look like an Arab souk.
In 2016, he surprised even himself by winning the elections, but he was like the dog that chased the car and caught it. Now what! He did minor redecorating to his taste as all presidents have done, but nothing overly dramatic. However, in between playing golf, getting briefed by his cabinet at Fox News, and stumbling and bumbling through his presidency, he did unleash Melania on the historic Rose Garden. She acquitted herself well and reduced the slightly wild but colourful space to one that was a reflection of herself – “sterile, bland and devoid of any joy”. Still, it could have been verse (her guttural Slavic pronunciation). In fact, worse was to befall when Trump conquered the White House during his second coming. This time he was prepared.
In his second term he started off by paving over Melania’s carefully coiffed lawn with limestone slabs to create an even more sterile place reflective of their marriage and then boastfully erected two over-hyped flagpoles. (Note, the minor provincial town of Port Elizabeth has a flagpole twice their height). On a roll he tackled the Oval Office. He has gone over the top on the signature Trump-style décor, probably salvaged from his bankrupted Taj Mahal casino. After turning it into a gold leaf tinsel town, his childish petulance could not resist his next move. He created a walk of fame on a wall of the West Wing colonnade by hanging baroque gilded framed photos of all the past presidents in order. Bracketed by snarling portraits of himself was Biden – a photograph only of his signature and the Autopen used to create it – phew, way to go big boy.
But all the gold touches and photos glorifying himself didn’t satisfy his itch. There was something missing. Deep down amidst all the froth of his reality shows, his transactional marriages and transactional affairs, his various presidencies, and his serial bankruptcies (6), he was a property developer at heart. It wasn’t good enough being a temporary tenant, he wanted to play God and remake the White House in his own image, his personal shrine.
In a flash of inspiration after inhaling a Big Mac, he knew what he didn’t like about the White House. It reminded him of skinny jeans which he hates (because amongst other things, he could never wear them and Obama could) – NO BALLROOM. Now this was a development project he could get his veneered teeth into to take his mind off his unrequited dream of a Nobel Prize now in peaces and his tariff war blowing up in his face.
At the end of July he announced the project to build a 90,000ft2 (8370m2 or 2.1 acres) ballroom with a capacity of 650 people to replace the current ballroom of 200 people capacity in the East Wing. He stated that it “won’t interfere with the current building. … It will be near it but not touching it, and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.” It should be noted that the two floors and basement of the central core of the White House have an area of 45000ft. The model showed a rectangular structure of about 88x48m (a rugby field is 100x50m) dwarfing the seat of America power. He is determined to finish it before the end of his term and, as usual, has bulldozed or ignored just about every authority mandated to deal with a program such as this. As always, Trump cannot be taken at his word. The capacity is now 990 and when the demolition started it looks as though the whole corridor up to the core will also be demolished, so who knows how the plans have changed.
Republicans have cravenly defended Trump by saying that even Obama made drastic changes – yes, he changed a tennis court into a basketball court!
God help the White House if he wangles a turd term.