Trump’s planned White House ballroom and other architectural projects are not distractions but part of a broader effort to inscribe his preferred values and view of America into institutions that future presidents will be forced to operate within. Resisting it will require organized refusal now and institutional redesign later.
CAMBRIDGE—Donald Trump has spent much of his second term as US president proposing monuments to himself: a 250-foot triumphal arch between the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington National Cemetery; a gilded, gargantuan White House ballroom; a planned remodeling of the Kennedy Center (renamed the Trump Kennedy Center); and a broader effort to remake Washington’s landscape in his preferred aesthetic.
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