Demolition

Posted on Wednesday 22 October 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump demolishes the East Wing, after promising not to;
  • Michelle Goldberg about MAGA;
  • Robert Reich on options to challenge the right’s “hate America” rhetoric;
  • Short items about how Christians should be in charge of everything, how MAGA hates people from India too, and Bill Maher on how if you’re a racist, you’re probably Republican.
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A few days ago Trump said his new ballroom would be close to but wouldn’t affect the existing East Wing. This week, he’s had the entire East Wing torn down, with no due process for how construction projects are usually built or torn down.

CNN, 22 Oct 2025: Why Trump’s sudden East Wing demolition is extraordinary — and dicey

When President Donald Trump reflected last week on the looming construction of his White House ballroom, the longtime real estate developer was practically giddy about the lack of red tape. He noted his New York projects often took years to break ground.

“They said, ‘Sir, you can start tonight,’” Trump said. “I said, what are you talking about? ‘You have zero zoning conditions. You’re the president of’ – I said, you got to be kidding.”

The president continued to marvel: “He said, ‘Sir, this is the White House. You’re the president of the United States. You can do anything you want.’”

… Images of the demolition of the existing East Wing, where the new ballroom will be located, have spurred apoplexy among Trump’s detractors and growing criticism from architectural and preservation groups.

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Will Trump manage to occupy the White House indefinitely? If not, what would happen if a Democrat moves in next?

The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last, 22 Oct 2025: We Will Tear Down the Trump Palace Ballroom and Casino, subtitled “Thinking like a dissident movement.”

Have you ever tried to put an addition on your home? How long did the process take? You have to:

  • Decide what you want to do.
  • Decide on an architect to design the job.
  • Go through the design process to settle on a final project.
  • Bid out the project to at least three contractors.
  • Go through the financing approval process.
  • Go through regulatory approval for permitting.

That’s months and months of work before you hammer in a single nail. And somehow Trump is doing demo work on a project that will dwarf the White House just nine months into his term.

Is a president really allowed to do this?

This is a serious question: Is the president the owner of the White House? Can he do literally anything he wants to it? Could he knock down the whole thing and replace it with a ten-story Brutalist cube?

I guess so.

The good news is this means that the next Democratic inhabitant of the White House can demolish the Trump Presidential Palace Ballroom and Casino and restore the East Wing and the rest of the White House grounds to their pre-Trump state.

He then addresses “normie objections” but, since I’m not a paid subscriber to the site, I can’t see the rest of the article. You get the gist.

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There’s more in the Michelle Goldberg piece that I quoted from yesterday. About the MAGA mindset, and slop.

NY Times, Michelle Goldberg, 20 Oct 2025: Trump Posted a Video of Himself Dumping Excrement on Our Cities. It’s a Glimpse of His Deepest Drives.

A perverse delight in defilement has always coursed through MAGA circles. Describing the profoundly cynical, curdled atmosphere in which 20th-century totalitarian movements took root, Hannah Arendt wrote, “It seemed revolutionary to admit cruelty, disregard of human values and general amorality, because this at least destroyed the duplicity upon which the existing society seemed to rest.” A similar giddy nihilism has long surrounded the president and his devotees, who often treat his unlikely ascension as a world-historical feat of trolling.

As I’ve said, it’s easier to destroy than to build. We see this day after day.

The dominant aesthetic of the administration comes not from antiquity but from A.I. slop, the tackier and more juvenile the better. (Think of the White House’s image of a crying migrant rendered in the style of a Japanese Studio Ghibli animation.) Last week, when HuffPost asked the White House who chose Hungary as the site of an upcoming meeting between Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, responded, “Your mom did.” She was obviously trying to insult and delegitimize a representative of the liberal media. But the result was to reveal herself as a gross parody of a professional press secretary. The administration plans to mark America’s 250th anniversary with a U.F.C. cage fight on the White House’s south lawn, an idea that seems ripped from the scabrous 2006 satire “Idiocracy.”

“Your mom did”? Is she still in high school, or grade school? This is the intellectual plain on which Trump and his administration operate.

Worth seeing “Idiocracy.” It’s as if MAGA really did rule the world.

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That reminds me how you can’t reason with people unable to reason because they’re blinded by their unassailable ideology, or religion.

Robert Reich, 22 Oct 2025: Office Hours: When Trump Republicans say their opponents “hate the military” and “hate America,” how should we respond?

Examples from Scott Perry, Trump, Mike Johnson. Reich consults others and identifies four main possible reactions.

1. Ignore them. Trump Republicans debase and demean themselves with this kind of rhetoric. It’s better that the rest of us not take the bait or respond with anger or defensiveness. Silence is the most eloquent response.

2. Punch back. Point out that Trump never served in the military because of his trumped-up claims about “bone spurs” that were never substantiated. And show that it’s Trump Republicans who hate America because they’re hurting average Americans with their import-taxing tariffs, price inflation, and failure to create jobs.

3. Claim we’re the true patriots. Don’t let them grab the mantle of patriotism. We’re trying to protect the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law from Trump’s treachery. We’re fighting to protect Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare and make child care and health care affordable.

4. Emphasize that we love America. We’re trying to heal its wounds by responding to the needs of all Americans. By contrast, they’re seeking to divide Americans — by politics, race, income, country of origin, sexual preferences or orientation, class, and gender.

Now, given my provisional conclusion that you can’t change people’s minds with facts or evidence… I don’t think options 2, 3, or 4 would work. How would you convince them? How would you tell them? I see Facebook videos of interviewers at Trump rallies, asking questions, and getting simple-minded or nonsensical answers. They’re not going to accept stories about bone spurs, job numbers, and so on and so on.

I think a cultural shift will need to happen. And it might happen sooner rather than later, given Trump’s recent behavior. And how all the promises he made about lowering food prices and whatnot have not come true. Eventually… at least some of his followers are going to realize they’ve been fooled. Yet, where would they go? Democrats are anathema. But anyone but Trump might be an improvement.

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Short items.

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