{"id":19095,"date":"2025-11-01T02:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/?p=19095"},"modified":"2025-11-01T02:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:53:12","slug":"die-hungerrepublik-und-ihr-praesident-im-marmorbadezimmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kaizen-blog.org\/en\/die-hungerrepublik-und-ihr-praesident-im-marmorbadezimmer\/","title":{"rendered":"The Republic of Hunger \u2013 and Its President in a Marble Bathroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are political symbols that make history - and then there are Donald Trump\u2019s toilets. While millions of people in the country do not know how they will pay for their next meal, the president has decided to renovate the part of the White House that comes closest to his presidency: the bathroom. On Friday, Karoline Leavitt, Trump\u2019s press secretary, appeared virtually at the lectern - and tweeted as if she had experienced a revelation. \u201cWhen I first learned that a toilet like that existed inside the White House, I was horrified,\u201d she wrote. Horrified, yes, traumatized, apparently by the idea that green tiles once existed in the Lincoln Bathroom. The young spokeswoman, who otherwise accompanies the collapse of democracy with the smile of a homecoming queen, continued to gush: \u201cPresident Trump is making the People\u2019s House more elegant and beautiful for generations of Americans to come!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Beneath her post was another: Donald Trump himself announced that he had \u201crenovated\u201d the \u201cLincoln Bathroom\u201d in the White House - to remove the \u201cArt Deco green tiles\u201d of the 1940s. These, said the president, were \u201ccompletely inappropriate for the Lincoln era.\u201d He has now had the bathroom designed \u201cin black and white polished statuary marble\u201d - \u201cfitting for the time of Abraham Lincoln\u201d and possibly \u201cmade from the marble that was originally there.\u201d Two photos accompanied the statement: on the left, the supposedly desecrated green-tiled hell; on the right, the new gleaming marble sanctuary - gold-accented, like a mix of Caesar\u2019s Palace and a Las Vegas luxury suite.
Dazu zwei Fotos: links die angeblich entweihte gr\u00fcne Fliesenh\u00f6lle, rechts das neue, gl\u00e4nzende Marmorheiligtum \u2013 golden akzentuiert, wie eine Mischung aus Caesars Palast und einer Las-Vegas-Luxus-Suite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The scene is not without tragicomedy: a president restoring toilets to save history. A cabinet talking about marble while social aid is being cut. All the court rulings on the issue were more than mere legal defeats - they were a moral slap in the face. They forced a government to give its own citizens what had already been paid for. That it took judges to do so is the real scandal. And a press secretary who, on a social media platform, defends the aesthetics of a washbasin in near-religious ecstasy. The \u201cPeople\u2019s House,\u201d she says, is becoming \u201cmore elegant and beautiful\u201d - as if the nation could be saved through bathroom design. Leavitt\u2019s \u201chorrified\u201d moment has long become a symbol. Not of moral shock, but of a government that loses its composure when a wall is too green, but not when there is hunger, war, or censorship. While Trump polishes the marble to a shine, democracy beneath it is cracking apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n