"He Just Wants to Dance" – Trump's 300 Million Dollar Ballroom and the Architecture of Megalomania

Washington has seen a lot under Trump: burning documents, falling stars, the invention of stolen elections, bizarre things. Why? "The president wants to dance." But what unfolded today on the grounds of the White House was, even for this city, an architectural revelation. Where the East Wing once stood – that historic part where Eleanor Roosevelt hosted journalists and Barack Obama scared children for Halloween – now gapes a pit. A pit of history. A pit of vanity. For Donald Trump is having it dug for what he described in one sentence that was meant to sound like the future but instead reeked of megalomania: "America deserves a ballroom." 300 million dollars, surrounded by stucco, gold leaf, and security cameras. A hall, it is said, that "in its size resembles Versailles but with the energy of Mar-a-Lago." And as if that weren’t enough, his press secretary Karoline Leavitt, during the daily press briefing, stated that the president could essentially tear down the Jefferson Memorial – "if he wants to."

"He is the president of the United States," she said. "If he decides that the memorial comes down, then it comes down." No flicker of an eyelash, no smile, no attempt to play it off as a joke. Just this quiet, almost proud undertone of submission. You have to imagine it: the president tearing down a historic wing of a building, without any planning review, without any heritage preservation approval, without consulting the city's architectural board. And his spokesperson says he can do it, because he wants to. It’s the political translation of the sentence: "Because I can."

The images of the day showed bulldozers tearing down white facades, rubble lying on lawns where once state guests delivered their speeches. "This is not demolition, this is a vision," Leavitt later explained in an interview with Fox News. "The president is making room for the America of tomorrow." When asked if this America would also have windows, she replied, "Windows are optional when you radiate light."

Meanwhile, the National Park Service was likely taken by surprise in their offices, as the demolition of the East Wing appeared to have begun without the usual public consultation or prior notice – an approach that raised questions even within the agency about the formal approval process and the preservation laws in place. Democrats reacted with outrage. Senator Elizabeth Warren called it "sacrilege in real time," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called it "the final proof that power isn’t elected, it’s just staged."

It is the very embodiment of his America – a president who moves stones to shift memory along with it. Who believes one can build grandeur like a lobby. And a spokesperson who believes democracy is a wall that can be wallpapered anytime.