Trump has brought his unique bully-boy, manchild character to Washington. Along with this came his barely formed aesthetic – white and gold – and he is steadily changing the White House into a Washington version of his Mar-a-Laager private club crossed with his bankrupt Taj Mahal casino. Given his immature sense of style, he is probably somewhere on the autistic spectrum and suffers from ADADHD – Arrested Development, Attention Deficit, Hype-ing Disorder.
In his first term he was like the dog who chased the car and caught it – now what? Although there was much typical Trumpian bombast and bluster, it was like a car crash where the traffic officer waves you on with a “Nothing to see here.” When Melania did eventually deign to grace the White House with her Slavic ice-queen presence, Trump allowed her to have her way with the historic Rose Garden. She didn’t do too much wrong, but did take a lot of the natural beauty out of it.
In his second term he did not trust Melania with the décor styling, but ploughed straight in and paved over the Rose Garden with a white dolomite. Then he turned his talents onto the Oval Office and converted it into a cross between Liberace’s boudoir and an Arab harem. Every square inch not covered by baroque gold-framed paintings was covered by kitsch gold-plated applique tat. As some wag commented, it was a case of if it ain’t baroque, fix it. Here he can pontificate in gold leaf splendor while surrounded by his fawning eunuchs, ḥarīmī and Faux News cameras.
Having set in motion the building of a grand ballroom set to dominate the White House campus, his latest styling venture is to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building opposite the West Wing a brilliant white covering the natural granite finish stating that grey is for funerals. Apart from the aesthetic or lack thereof aspect, the paint could trap moisture causing damage and will need upkeep forever more. He won’t consult the agencies in charge of historical buildings because, being the stable genius that he is, he knows better than the experts. His gut instincts are always perfect, and what a gut!
To prove that he is not just a superficial person, his whitewashing goes deeper than just décor. His cabinet of 22 felon travellers has one black face and one Latino woman in minor roles. Then there are all the election fraudsters and January 6 insurrectionists who he pardoned, not to mention other hucksters and fraudsters who paid large campaign contributions. In the white washing of the latter, he showed his true depth of character – the depth of his depravity.
For those who don’t follow the minutiae of Trump’s reign, this is the Oval Office after being given the King Midas makeover.
