The Smaller Trump Outrages

[Celerity]

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-08-25-smaller-trump-outrages/



I.

Foreign visitors to the White House are often surprised at how modest the presidential mansion is, as befits a republic. Trump, obsessed about size, is adding a 90,000-square-foot meeting hall to the East Wing, dwarfing the original structure. More egregious still is the fact that Trump ordered the paving over of the Rose Garden. The new patio where roses once bloomed was unveiled this month. It has oversized umbrellas like the ones at Mar-a-Lago. Trump treats the White House as his personal property rather than as a national shrine that he gets to occupy temporarily.

Trump doesn’t know much about history. If he did, he would know that Hitler ordered a massive display of swastikas on poles that all but crowded out the linden trees that graced Berlin’s grand boulevard, Unter den Linden. The linden trees were later chopped down for firewood. Plowing under the iconic White House Rose Garden in favor of a Mar-a-Lago plaza is a grotesquerie worthy of Hitler. On his first day in office, Trump issued an order titled “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture.” The order, with no sense of irony, read in part, “Federal public buildings should … uplift and beautify public spaces and ennoble the United States and our system of self-government.” Quite so.

II.

This weekend, strolling through Boston Common, a visitor would encounter four massive Marine helicopters. They are part of the national celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps. The anniversary, marking the creation of America’s armed forces in 1775, inspired Trump’s own celebration of the Army in June, which provided the president with a birthday backdrop for his sparsely attended Russian-style military parade. In Boston, people were lined up to take tours of the helicopters, one of the few advanced products that the U.S. still manufactures and exports, as Trump destroys the renewable-energy economy.

This yearlong celebration was the work of the Marine Corps, not Trump. But the symbolism is creepy. All week, military aircraft have been buzzing downtown Boston, echoing the National Guard patrols of D.C. and portending the occupation of the next cities on Trump’s list. Beside the helicopter exhibit was a sign. “Pardon our noise. It’s the sound of freedom.” Uh, no. The sound of freedom is elected officials debating and voting on laws, judges handing down decisions free from partisan taint, ordinary citizens speaking at local meetings and turning out to vote, and the media reporting without fear or favor. Depending on who is ordering copters to do what, they can embody the sound of freedom, or of despotism.

III.

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[Solly Mack]

1. K&R