Meet me at the wrecking ball: Trump's gaudy gilded dance hall is more than just a metaphor, it's a warning

 

If you thought that #NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump's tarting-up of the Oval Office with garish gold gew-gaws was THE metaphor for his profoundly awful Biff Tannen presidency, or that his desecration of the Rose Garden, turning it into a Mar-a-Lago patio club for billionaires and toadies, was the ultimate symbol of his reckless, destructive impulses and elitist nature, the Trump regime says, "Hold my beer." For as you must surely know by now, a newer and far more extreme Trump-presidential metaphor that illustrates all of the above has hit the news over the past few days: the total destruction of the lovely and historic East Wing of the White House in order to build an obscene gilded grand ballroom (or should that be gallroom?) that is nearly twice the size of the existing White House.

The current price tag is $300 million $350 million, up from the $200 million Trump announced back in July. Don't be surprised if the price continues to go up and up and up, but no worries. He claims that the project will be totally funded by him and some of his bestest oligarch buddies, who almost certainly are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and a heartwarmingly patriotic desire to improve the White House, and who don't expect a thing in return. Not a penny will come out of taxpayer pockets; you have his word on it.

But try telling that to the malcontents! Despite his reassurances that the project won't cost taxpayers a dime, a few (million) folks apparently aren't at all happy about the fact that Trump can't stop gloating about his tawdry Winter Palace ballroom while the government is still shut down, and thousands of employees as well as military members are going without pay, and inflation is creeping up, and employment is flat, and groceries and gasoline prices and utility bills are increasing, and armed masked thugs are snatching hundreds of people, including American citizens, from the streets of America and disappearing them, and Trump tariffs and other policies have screwed our farmers and countless small business owners, and people are losing healthcare coverage as well as food benefits and other social safety nets, and funding for scientific and medical research -- including the funding of childhood cancer research -- has been halted so billionaires can get a bigger tax break. Such ingrates, these complainers, who clearly can't appreciate the breadth and depth of King Donold's grand vision.

Along with countless others, my favorite foul-mouthed pundit Jeff Tiedrich pointed out that besides being a metaphor for Trump's wrecking of the country so he can rebuild it in his image, this atrocity is also yet another example of Trump's endless stream of lies.

“it won’t interfere with the current building. it’ll be near it but not touching it. and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of. it’s my favorite.” [That's what Trump originally promised.]

oh gee, who even knew that Donny had a favorite wing of the White House — the east one. yeah, right. just like Cokey McSniffles is his favorite son. totally credible remark.

so, it turns out that the guy who lied to us about bone spurs and hush money and his Ukraine phone call and a hurricane and covid and the election and his height and his weight and his golf scores and his magically regenerated ear also lied to us about preserving the East Wing.

I’m fucking shocked, I tell you. how did we Nazi this coming?

Yet Trump took umbrage when a reporter suggested that he had been less than transparent about the ballroom plans. Tiedrich continued:

reporter: “I just want a quick follow-up to that question. your response to people who say you haven’t been transparent enough about this—”

Donny: “I haven’t been transparent enough? really? I’ve shown this to everybody that would listen. third-rate reporters didn’t see it because they didn’t look. you’re a third-rate reporter. always have been.”

what a whiny fucking crybaby. ‘everyone has to love my vulgar dance hall, and you’re a third-rate poopyhead if you don’t.’

oh, boo fucking hoo.

here’s what our Fuckstain-in-Chief calls ‘being transparent’: he held up a drawing of some gaudy gold monstrosity — and then raged because every reporter didn’t immediately burst into tears and go ‘sir! thank you for your transparency. how do you do it? how do you hold up a drawing like no one thought possible? sir! sir!’

In an eloquent piece on the Lincoln Square Substack on October 23, writer Rick Wilson lamented the utter obscenity of it all.

Donald Trump didn’t just misunderstand the East Wing; he loathes the category of things it represents.

He walked into a cathedral with a bullhorn, spray paint, and faux gold leaf. He saw a place designed for civic honor, official tenderness, and historical respect and wondered why it didn’t look more like a casino atrium, a glittery Liberace dreamscape.

The East Wing, under Melania Trump, became a mood board for grievance. The holiday corridors turned into a fever dream of performative menace, a pomo aesthetic that screamed more threat than holiday spirit. The Social Office, traditionally where protocol breathes, is now one more wing of the Department of Trolling, a conveyor belt of grotesque events staged not as acts of national hospitality but as moments for the Dear Leader to caper while his minions offer proofs of loyalty.

The White House grounds have become a gimcrack stage set, a regional dinner theater of the absurd.

It’s American malaise dressed up as blaring pageant: a stripper-pole segment added to a ballet, a spiritual emptiness that comes when a man confuses himself with a country and then tries to decorate the void in more and more gold leaf and Temu-grade gradeau.

The conservative Bulwark had a few words about the matter too, discussing on an October 23 piece the fact that Trump apparently sees the physical history of the People's House in much the same way that he views the nation's laws, as something to be swept aside at will. In a segment headlined "The Asbestos Wing," Bill Kristol wrote about why Trump broke his promise that the White House wouldn't be touched by construction of the new ballroom.

But that pledge by the President is no longer operative. Why not? Well, Trump explained yesterday, the East Wing “was never thought of as being much. It was a very small building.”

Very small is bad. Very big is good. And so Donald Trump decided that the small old East Wing would be summarily replaced by a big new ballroom.

What, you ask, will that grand structure be called? Did you have to ask? According to the pledge agreement sent to donors, they’ll be contributing to the construction of ”The Donald J. Trump Ballroom at the White House.”

Eeesh. And unless you're a devoted MAGA cultist, the implications are grim.

Trump... as he sat Tuesday at his desk in his newly gilded Oval Office, looking out on his paved-over Rose Garden, not far from where he plans to build his new imitation of the Arc de Triomphe, said this: “We can never let what happened in the 2020 election happen again. We just can’t let that happen. I know Kash is working on it, everybody is working on it. And certainly Tulsi is working on it. We can’t let that happen again to our country.”

Unlike Lincoln, Donald Trump doesn’t seem to imagine himself a mere temporary inhabitant of the building in which he resides. He apparently doesn’t intend to allow for the defeat of the incumbent administration, and a peaceful transfer of power, in November, 2028.

Kristol is just one of many who have warned that the grand ballroom is far more than an ugly metaphor for an ugly "presidency" -- it's also a stark warning that the current occupant of the White House does not intend to leave when his term is up. And there is almost certainly much more going on beneath the surface -- literally. From CBS News, October 22, 2025:

The bunker under the East Wing will also be upgraded, sources told CBS News. The White House Military Office is handling the renovation of the bunker, which is known as the President's Emergency Operations Center.

Commentator Glee Violette, on an October 23, 2025 Facebook post, wrote:

Trump will use ANY means - ANY MEANS - to hold on to the office this time around. He has proven that. He has three goals that motivate him - personal power, wealth, and revenge. Nothing he does is for the MAGA folks - they are just his pawns. And he is not here to make America "great", but to PLUNDER it and OWN it.

So, there must be NO midterm elections next year. [To stop them] he needs war-time conditions. And that war will be RIGHT HERE. So he needs himself a proper bunker. Not the 60 year old WWII bunker he hid in last time. A lavish, opulent, HUGE bunker, in the style to which he has become accustomed.

Oh, and the Ballroom he is building over it will be a nice place to serve as a proper Great Hall and Throne Room, afterwards, in order to receive tributes from future supplicants, as well.

If you think that sounds like mere leftist hysteria or conspiranoia, you haven't been paying attention. Read the rest of Glee's post for a list of some of the most egregious violations of U.S. and international law being committed by the bellicose, power-hungry Trump regime.

The White House desecration may seem like a non-issue or at least a minor matter in the larger scheme of things; in fact, MAGA by and large seems totally on-board with it. Note that these are the same folks who got all bent out of shape when Cracker Barrel changed its logo and some of its interior decor; they heralded those changes as the end of American culture and the takeover of evil wokeness. They screamed and shouted and wept and whined until Cracker Barrel ultimately changed the logo back.

But the vulgarization of the White House? Hey, say the regime as well as countless MAGA, other presidents have done stuff to the White House, and this is no different (ignoring the fact that it is, in many ways, very different and much more extreme). To MAGA it's just a matter of letting Donald be Donald. He builds stuff, that's his thing. Besides, he's Our President and he can do whatever he wants. So shut up, you complainers with your trivial gripes.

But what is being done to the People's House is hardly trivial: it is both an ugly metaphor and, very likely, an ominous sign of things to come.

P.S. Getty Images offers a pictorial demolition diary. If you have any love of American history and ideals, it will make you sad.

Before you leave...
While money cannot make some nightmares go away, be they political or personal, it can make them far easier to bear. With my husband Ron's passing in February 2025, I have experienced significant income loss and am scrambling to find more work, but in an industry increasingly being taken over by AI, it has been a challenge. And now that I am making a major move, which is never cheap, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
• New: PayPal -- Here is a direct link to my PayPal page.
• Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, as well as the link in this sentence, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.

NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is for "friends and family," which will waive PayPal's substantial transaction fee.

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.

Hope for America and the world: the No Kings movement is just getting stronger

 

You gave the man your eyes
so you could sleep at night
but you still hear their cries
you can't outrun this shame.
this land was yours and mine
until they bled it dry
history won't be kind
to those who turned the other way
~ Earth to Eve, "Have you heard the news" (addressing MAGA cult members)

Millions of Americans -- and people the world over -- have not turned the other way. Indeed, as the Trump regime doubles and triples down on its horrendous overreach, fascist policies and actions, and shameless attempts to destroy civil rights and shred the Constitution, the resistance seems to be hitting its stride at last -- that is, if the massive turnout for the October 18, 2025 No Kings protests is any indication.

Here is a link on the Talking Points Memo site to a few photos and videos from just some of the demonstrations. You can find much, much more online with even a casual search.

And, just like the previous No Kings events on June 14, 2025, the October 18 demonstrations stretched far beyond the borders of the US. Our wonderful but worried neighbors (or neighbours) to the North showed up by the thousands, from Vancouver to Toronto to Montreal. The tone across Canada has been one of firm support and shared purpose. Canadians are clearly watching developments in the U.S. closely — and they’re not staying silent. They're really, really worried about us. (And I am too.)

Several major cities in Europe and the UK also participated in demonstrations.

Reportedly even Australia rallied to the cause as well, from Sidney to Melbourne to Brisbane. While turnout was reported to be modest in comparison to No Kings events elsewhere, it's good to know the Aussies have our backs. I'll add a good link as soon as I can find one; the link I'd intended to use has been 404'd. But I know from communicating with my friends in Oz, and from reading posts by Australian participants on social media, that they do indeed have our backs.

I have also seen unverified reports of a small demonstration in Seoul, South Korea, and there's a video circulating on BlueSky of what looks like a pretty significant march that the person sharing the video, with the hashtag NoKings, claimed took place in South Korea and was in support of US democracy. I watched the video but couldn't understand what was being shouted, and I couldn't read the marchers' signs, so I can't verify. There's a lot going on there, and South Koreans have held other political demonstrations recently. I'll update if I find out any more specifics about a protest or demonstration in South Korea in support of the No Kings events in America.

But clearly, South Korea is paying attention to what's going on within the borders of their increasingly unreliable (thanks to Trump) ally. Other parts of Asia, as well as Latin America, have apparently been paying attention as well, and I have seen scattered reports that they're showing early signs of engagement in the larger movement against authoritarianism. I think we can expect more as the movement grows. For now, the verified and well-sourced reports of participation by other countries is immensely gratifying.

The pearl clutchers were ludicrously wrong
Contrary to the alarmist rants and warnings and outrageous lies from the Trump regime, the protests showed that the millions of participants in the No Kings demonstrations have an abiding love for America. Here's just one dispatch from a northwest suburb of my beloved former hometown of Houston. I'm friends in real life with the person in the frog costume, who explained to the reporter that the demonstrators were out in the wilting Texas heat because they love their country.

Moreover the No Kings events on October 18 were overwhelmingly peaceful, with no major disturbances reported. There was significant law enforcement and in several areas National Guard presence at demonstrations across the US, but while visible, they were by and large non-confrontational. In fact police departments in some areas coordinated with the organizers of the No Kings events to help ensure peaceful demonstrations.

A few incidents and arrests occurred in some locations, mostly involving counter-protesters, presumably Trump supporters. Other reported incidents either involved ICE and were separate from the main No Kings events, or happened late at night with stragglers hours after the main events had concluded.

• In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 59-year-old woman who was wearing a Trump T-shirt was arrested for brandishing a firearm from her vehicle near the No Kings protest at Chapin Memorial Park. She expressed regret and claimed that the gun was unloaded, but she was charged with two counts of pointing and presenting a firearm. According to the article I linked to, public records indicate that she isn't even legally allowed to possess a firearm or deadly weapons. On Sunday a judge set her bond at $100,000, which she posted later that day, after which she was released.
• In Detroit, Michigan, a counter-protester supporting President Trump was arrested for scuffling with demonstrators who were peacefully marching on Michigan Avenue.
• In Portland, Oregon, three arrests were made following late-night clashes between protesters and federal agents outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. Law enforcement used tear gas and crowd control measures. But this was separate from the No Kings protests in the area. It was just ICE doing more of what ICE has been doing in Portland and other cities for months now.
• In Broadview, Illinois, several people were arrested near a local ICE facility, with some charges related to disorderly conduct and disobeying police orders. These incidents were reportedly separate from the main "No Kings" march in Chicago, which was peaceful.
• In LA, while the main protest was peaceful in Los Angeles that day, late-night dispersal orders led to arrests after some smaller groups refused to leave the downtown area.
• And in a few cities, such as Ocala, Florida, there were verbal confrontations between MAGA counter-protesters and No Kings participants, but no arrests or violence were confirmed.

Additional isolated incidents will no doubt surface in the days and weeks to come, so the above list is of course not comprehensive. But in most of the large blue cities that Trump and his goons and supporters love to hate there were no major incidents. And across the country, there wasn't a single riot or terrorist attack or attempt to overthrow the government. Sorry, pearl clutchers.

Mango Mussolini is in deep denial (and deep doo-doo)
And what did Trump, the man-baby who would be king, think about the overwhelming displays of resistance against His Mango Majesty? Well, there's the now-infamous Donald Dump video, which as far as I'm concerned should be declared the official video of the Turd Reich: an AI-generated vid of MAGA's big hero wearing a crown while flying a fighter jet over the Big Apple (the city that rejected him), and dumping poop over a huge crowd of protesters. It was posted to his Truth Social account -- here's a direct link -- and the Internet can't stop buzzing about it.

There have been contradictory reports about just when this video was originally posted. Some accounts say it was posted on Friday by his communications team, ahead of the demonstrations, and was amplified by his campaign team. (That's what I originally reported here.) But most sources are saying that Trump posted the vid on Saturday after the events had begun, in reaction to all of the buzz about the protests.

On the Truth Social site there's no date/time indicator on the post that I can see, but maybe that's just because I'm not a member of Truth Social. I'm not going to join just to see if I can find out when the video was originally posted. I suppose it doesn't really matter; what seems clear is that Trump hasn't disavowed it, and the MAGAs are absolutely giddy about what they see as clever trolling. Talk about owning the libs/Democrats/"radical left"/Trump critics! King Donald sure showed them, didn't he?

By and large the criticism of the poop vid focuses on how unprecedented and unpresidential and just generally unhinged it is. On the other hand, some critics have also pointed out that this video is actually far more accurate than most of what spews from the Trump propaganda machine. It's an apt metaphor not only for how he sees himself but also for what he's doing to the nation. Notwithstanding his repeated claims that "I am not a king!", he acts like a king wannabe, and he is in so many ways dumping on the American people.

And he's not just dumping on the libs. The problem for the MAGAs who are so busy cheering the ca-ca king is that most of them simply don't realize yet that they're getting shat on as well.

One of my favorite responses so far to the poop-shooting video is from political commentator, comedian, and social media influencer Maggie Reed, aka Mermaidmamamaggie, whom I adore. I just love that woman's smirk. She smirks better than just about anyone I have ever seen. In a short reel posted on October 18, Reed manages to communicate, with her facial expressions and a few pertinent visuals, that there's a yuuuuge difference between childish trolling for the base and acknowledging the harsh reality that most Americans despise Trump and what his regime is doing to our beloved country.

Meanwhile Trump continues to protest-too-much that he's "not a king," and he dismisses the October 18 protests as NBD. During a brief press interaction aboard his plane on Sunday, October 19, he had this to say when a reporter asked him for his response to the No Kings protests (thanks to Bryan Tyler Cohen for the reel):

I think it's a joke. I looked at the people, they're not representative of this country. And I looked at all the brand new signs paid for -- I guess it was paid for by Soros and other radical left lunatics. It looks like it was, we're checking it out. The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective, and the people were whacked-out. When you look at those people, those are not representative of the people of our country.

Then he added, "By the way I'm not a king. I'm not a king. I work my ass off to make our country great. That's all it is. I'm not a king at all."

I'm no expert on abnormal psychology, but offhand I'd say that Trump's dismissal of the mass protest is the declaration of a man who is in deep denial and who, despite his arrogance, is scared... well, sh-tless.

* * * * *

Due to a combination of personal circumstances, I was unable to attend a No Kings event in my area. But I was with all of them in spirit. And seeing some of the photos and videos of the massive crowds actually brought tears to my eyes as I realized that there still seems to be hope in the fight against tyranny.

I'll leave you with a couple of videos that do not involve poop-dumping, and a link to a post by one of my favorite foul-mouthed commentators.

First, if you haven't done so already, check out the song linked to at the head of this post, by an amazing young talent going by the name Earth to Eve. She actually composed a song specifically for No Kings 2, but I don't yet have a link to a full version. For now, "Have you heard the news" (here's a direct link) sums up the state of affairs under Trump very powerfully and eloquently.

And then there's Jasmyne A. Cannick, who, unlike our esteemed leaders, said what needed to be said in response to Trump press puppet Karolyin' Leavitt's declaration that the Democratic Party's main constituency is "Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals." Forget "when they go low, we go high." I am a big fan of Michelle Obama, but unfortunately that strategy, which she famously suggested in her speech in support of Hillary Clinton at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, never worked. Cannick shows that she is willing to meet Leavitt in the basement. "You wanna find America's terrorists? Check your own damn Christmas card list!"

And finally, one of my favorite potty-mouthed pundits, Jeff Tiedrich, weighed in on Sunday with a celebratory post and plenty of photos and links. Here he is.

Stay strong, stay peaceful, stay safe, my friends, and do stay in touch with the No Kings movement, which has more events planned for the future.

This post has been updated and amended since its original publication, most notably, to correct and update information about isolated incidents during the protests, as well as to correct and clarify information about the responses (from Trump and others) to the No Kings events on October 18.
~ CC

Before you leave...
While money cannot make some nightmares go away, be they political or personal, it can make them far easier to bear. With my husband Ron's passing in February 2025, I have experienced significant income loss and am scrambling to find more work, but in an industry increasingly being taken over by AI, it has been a challenge. And now that I am making a major move, which is never cheap, donations are urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to do it:

• New: Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
• New: PayPal -- Here is a direct link to my PayPal page.
• Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, as well as the link in this sentence, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.

NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please specify that your contribution is for "friends and family," which will waive PayPal's substantial transaction fee.

Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this Whirled.