|
Since Trump took office again, there has been a bewildering lack of reaction to his heinous abuses. During the Obama years, the media would throw a fit over him wearing a tan suit, but today, Trump can issue endless pardons to allies and it merits one story at most. But reality of what Trump is—an aspiring tinpot dictator straight out of central casting—might be sinking in with what he is doing to the White House. After promising not to touch the building, he has torn down the entire East Wing to make room for a monstrous ballroom named after himself. It’s a lesson into why dictatorship is bad that all too many Americans need. |
|
–Ryan Cooper, senior editor |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The most marked characteristic of the second Donald Trump presidency is the pretense of normality. Just about every day, Trump does something that would have been a world-historical, presidency-ending scandal for any previous president, and the default response—at least from business, universities, the mainstream media, and other elite quarters—is a collective shrug. If Trump were to unhinge his jaw and swallow a live woodchuck during a press conference, the New York Times headline would be “In Washington, Trump Makes Unusual Dining Choice.”
But Trump’s ongoing destruction of the White House might just be different. As I am writing this, a construction crew is finishing the complete destruction of the East Wing of the White House, to make room for a 90,000-square-foot ballroom called—what else?—“The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House.” This ballroom will be nearly twice the size of the original White House mansion. My only surprise is he didn’t sell off the naming rights, so it could be the Donald J. Trump Coinbase DraftKings Ticketmaster Ballroom at the White House.
If headlines, social media chatter, and conversation with friends and neighbors are any judge, this is breaking through in a way that little else has in the last nine months. For a while, it seemed like the Epstein files would create this breakthrough, and to an extent it has. But the reaction to the destruction of the East Wing has been surprisingly visceral. A criminal madman who is ineligible to be president is literally and symbolically ripping out the core of American democracy, and replacing it with a hideously gaudy monstrosity, where he will collect billions in bribes. This is what dictatorship feels like, and it’s long since time Americans woke up to this fact.
|
| Continue reading this story |
|
|
|
|
|
|
We’re coming up on the final stretch of our fall fundraising drive, and, candidly, we’re short of our goal. If you’re reading this, you already know what The American Prospect stands for: journalism that doesn’t flinch in the face of power, that digs into the machinery of inequality, and that believes democracy only works when people are informed and organized.
Unlike most publications, we don’t have a paywall. We believe everyone should be able to read our reporting, regardless of income. But that means we depend on those who can afford to give — readers like you — to keep this work free and accessible for the public. Can you help us keep our work available to everyone?
If you value what the Prospect does, now is the time to step up. Help us close the gap and hit our goal before the deadline. |
| SUPPORT INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM |
|
|
|
|
Join us today live on YouTube at 12:30 pm ET for our episode of the Prospect Weekly Roundup, where executive editor David Dayen and investigations editor Maureen Tkacik will discuss Chicago’s Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, which had been ravaged by a series of sprawling apartment building pump-and-dump schemes long before ICE appeared on the scene. |
|
|
|
ON OUR SITE |
|
AI is an artificial fix for education. |
|
|
|
RFK’s corporate underlings: Several top officials in the Department of Health and Human Services worked for the very
corporate interests their boss claims to oppose. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
