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Wednesday Morning Rant

Hatred

The insanity surrounding Trump's renovation of the White House is truly remarkable to behold. The meltdown among the leftist establishment has beggared belief. Trump is doing a major renovation to the property. It happens from time to time. But this time, it is of course monstrous and an assault on decency, motherhood and the American Way.

This crazy overreaction is for two reasons. The first and most obvious, of course, is the simple fact that it is Trump doing it. It doesn't matter if the renovation is valuable and useful. It doesn't matter if Trump finagled a way to pay for it without taxpayer money. All that matters is that the Bad Orange Man is doing it. For many people, that's as far as it goes. Trump, therefore bad. It needn't be more complicated than that.

For many people, however, there is a a reason beyond #OrangeManBad that they are freaking out over the ballroom. It's in part because of Trump, but it goes deeper. The rage being expressed by some of the critics of the addition is because the project is not hateful. It is not deliberately offensive to normal people. These people are having conniptions not just because it is Trump's project, but because normal people won't hate it - and the proper purpose of architecture is spite and contempt for normal people. If it isn't offensive the peasant class, it's bad architecture - and by this standard, the new ballroom is very bad architecture.

Talking Points Memo (published through Yahoo! rather than its own site for some reason) goes down this road. It starts out as bog-standard TDS before getting to the real point:

Since re-taking office, Trump has filled the Oval Office with gold-colored tchotchkes, began work on a $200 million ballroom, and paved over the Rose Garden with concrete. Last week, news broke that Trump is considering building a grand triumphal arch in Arlington to commemorate the nation's 250th anniversary. And in accordance with a March EO to "reinstate ... pre-existing monuments," two D.C.-area Confederate statues that were taken down in 2023 are being restored. On Monday, Trump took a literal bulldozer to the government when crews began demolishing part of the White House's East Wing to make room for the president's ballroom extension.

Classic stuff. But it isn't just TDS over at TPM:

Trump is also leaning on the idea that architecture can be used -- as groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy realized in the post-Reconstruction era -- to hearken back to a whiter past.

"The classical architecture stuff is a dog whistle for white nationalists," said Martin, who co-edited a book titled "Architecture against Democracy."

Architecture in America has been associated with "an American public, a democratic body, a democratic society," Martin told TPM, "but also an imperial society, a slave-owning society, a commercial society. Classical architecture covers all of this."

Now we're getting somewhere! I love a good, solid intersectional bigotry argument!

The president's architectural EO is in keeping with this reclamation of a bygone culture shaped by American expansionism, strict gender and racial hierarchies, xenophobia, and less advanced scientific development.

"Architecture speaks silently," Martin told TPM. "The attempt to revive classical architecture under current political conditions is an attempt that speaks silently about dismantling not just the ideas that were expressed in 2020, but the institutions of civil rights. And so it speaks silently the language of white nationalism. And that is well known, but it's very difficult to literally demonstrate or prove. That's why it's so effective, because it's easily deniable."

Classic! "It may not look racist - and in fact, it might seem insane that we think that it is - but trust us, bro, it totally is! And, because they can't help going Full Godwin, they end it on a high note:

Martin called the proposed triumphal arch in Arlington "Napoleonic" and part of "an imperial tradition."

Powerful leaders throughout history, from Napoleon to Louis XIV, have called upon architects to construct imposing, enduring physical manifestations of their political projects, Wilson of Columbia pointed out.

"Adolf Hitler had Albert Speer, right?"

Gotta love it. But the best line in the whole thing is this one:

By seeking to assert control over civic architecture, Trump is creating a physical testament to his destruction of democracy, Reinhold Martin, an architecture historian and Columbia University Professor, told TPM. It's an aesthetic offshoot of Project 2025's goal to gut public welfare and government services, Martin said.

"It's a project of demolition, and that's why I'm saying the laughable but also obviously very tragic and historically disastrous outcome of this would be a series of empty basically stage sets," Martin said, "empty political monuments, buildings with nothing in them because they fired everybody."

Traditional western architecture that most people like is "a testament" to the "destruction of democracy." This isn't even about Trump anymore, it's about pure hatred. Hatred for the peasant classes who like the wrong things. Hatred of anyone who advocates for - or even merely likes - traditional things. This is a sneering, contemptuous hatred of western culture and any who desire its continuation. And it isn't new. Leftist culture warriors have long seen architecture as a major battleground in the war against the public. These same people adore imposing, oppressive architectural monstrosities like the Boston City Hall, the Seattle Experience Music Project, the Kunsthaus Graz and, for that matter, Obama's presidential library but absolutely despise anything traditional, normal or pleasant.

Architecture is supposed to oppress people like the Boston City Hall. It is supposed to be significant through misshapen, garish ugliness like the Experience Music Project. It is supposed to symbolically - and literally - devour its traditional surroundings like the Kunsthaus Graz. It's supposed to be overbearing, misplaced and unpleasant like the Obama library. It is not supposed to be something people like, it is supposed to be something that people "need" - with humanity-hating academic leftists defining what those needs are.

So enjoy pointing and laughing at the pearl-clutching over Trump's new ballroom. I certainly am. But never forget that lurking just beneath the surface is the real reason for the horrified reaction. It isn't merely TDS, it's hatred. Hatred of the West. Hatred of tradition. Hatred of national pride. Hatred of arrogant peasants who refuse to listen to their betters.

Hatred of you.