Donald Trump vs. the NIMBYs
The teardown of the White House’s East Wing this week is a Rorschach test. Many see the rubble as a metaphor for President Donald Trump’s reckless disregard of norms and the rule of law, a reflection of his willingness to bulldoze history and a temple to a second Gilded Age, paid for by corporate donors. Others see what they love about Trump: A lifelong builder boldly pursuing a grand vision, a change agent unafraid to decisively take on the status quo and a developer slashing through red tape that would stymie any normal politician.
In classic Trump fashion, the president is pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible. Privately, many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses acknowledge the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating. It is absurd that tents need to be erected on the South Lawn for state dinners, and VIPs are forced to use porta-potties.
The State Dining Room seats 140. The East Room seats about 200. Trump says the ballroom at the center of his 90,000-square-foot addition will accommodate 999 guests. The next Democratic president will be happy to have this.
Preservationists express horror that Trump did not submit his plans to their scrutiny, but the truth is that this project would not have gotten done, certainly not during his term, if the president had gone through the traditional review process. The blueprints would have faced death by a thousand papercuts. […]
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Why is defence of it insane? The article makes a good point re: state guests and needing to erect tents to accommodate them.
Genuinely curious
In all honesty, “limit the state dinner to who the white house can seat” sounds like a perfectly reasonable alternative to tents.
The home of the national manager doesn’t need to be a venue big enough to seat every last member of Congress, the cabinet, the supreme Court, every other statewide elected official, AND a foreign dignitary with their entourage.
If we do need a venue that big, it should either be part of the Capitol or a free standing structure.
That’s a reasonable way to think about it, but what “should” happen and what “does” happen are different.
It seems like historically, state visits happen at the White House, which to me makes a lot of sense given the logistics of hosting foreign entourage.
The US is a world power, part of being a world power is being able to project that power, including through aesthetics, compare the aesthetics of a state visit in the Kremlin and Great Hall of the People vs. hosting in a temporary tent on a lawn.
Surely you don’t think the white House is the only suitable banquet hall in Washington DC?
If there was a suitable banquet hall, why are state receptions held on the South Lawn by every admin?
Not passing judgement, making an observation
Yes as if that is the only thing the US government did that made people’s lives more difficult and didn’t make sense…
For starters, there’s the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, located less than 2 miles from the White House, where the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is held every year and has a seating capacity of more than twice what this one is planned to have.
It’s really not like DC is hurting for hotels, ballrooms, convention centers and other suitable places to host large events.
As for why have it on the south lawn when those sorts of facilities are available? I ask myself a similar question whenever I get a wedding invite and the venue is outdoors, but people choose and even prefer to have these sorts of formal events outside sometimes, so this is cutting into available space to host those sorts of events, because it’s a lot harder to find a large private outdoor space in DC that can be easily secured than it is to find a suitable indoor space.