ON A SUNNY MORNING IN MAY 1984, I reported for a job as First Lady Nancy Reagan’s speechwriter. I drove my Toyota Corolla up to the Ellipse, careful to display the special tag permitting me to park quite close to the East Wing, and ventured inside, past the line of visitors awaiting their guided tours and past the uniformed Secret Service (to whom I flashed a another pass) into the offices of the First Lady’s chief of staff.
Americans who haven’t visited the White House for a guided tour probably can’t picture the East Wing. There’s no TV show about it. It has no famous office to rival the Oval. There are relatively few photos of it in its current form.
As someone who worked there for six months (I moved to the West Wing after the 1984 election), allow me to sing its praises: The East Wing was built in 1902 as a visitors’ entrance and then expanded in 1942 to house the First Lady’s offices. Its style echoes the West Wing in design and footprint, which gives the White House complex a rough symmetry. Like the West Wing, it’s smaller than Hollywood imagines. It conveys stability and authority without ostentation. Unlike the West Wing, it’s flooded with sunlight and, at least when Nancy Reagan held court, adorned with fresh flowers. The two-story structure melds seamlessly into the surrounding gardens. You can hardly see it from the street.
Now President Trump has announced that he will “modernize” (which must mean demolish) the East Wing and replace it with a huge, gaudy ballroom. At 90,000 square feet, the ballroom will dwarf the West Wing and even the residence. Naturally it will be adorned in white and gold (to get a flavor, have a look at the way Trump has decorated the Oval Office). This permanent disfigurement will solve a problem that doesn’t exist. When the president entertains more people than can comfortably fit in the East Room (about 200), tents are erected on the lawn complete with floors and walls. But Trump is dissatisfied with the historic building that was good enough for Lincoln and Eisenhower and Reagan. Ladies’ high heels sink into the grass, he says, explaining why he has also paved over the Rose Garden.
But rather than rail against this desecration of a key national symbol, perhaps it’s better to welcome it. The presidency will never be the same post-Trump, so why not the White House? Why not make concrete and visible the destruction of centuries-old norms and values? This president has just elevated to a Court of Appeals a lawyer who presided over a purge of FBI agents who investigated Trump for January 6th and instructed his underlings at the Justice Department to “F— the courts.” He has opened a criminal investigation into former Special Counsel Jack Smith on the specious charge of violating the Hatch Act. His attorney general has opened a disciplinary investigation of Judge James Boasberg because Boasberg privately expressed concerns that the Trump administration might, to borrow a phrase, “F— the courts.”
Trump has solicited the gift of a jet from a foreign potentate. He has prostituted his office to the highest bidder by floating meme coins. He has pardoned more than 1,500 rioters who attempted to steal the 2020 election for him. He has shaken down leading law firms, media companies, and universities by threatening their livelihoods with government action. He has removed protection from recent immigrants, like Afghans, who risked their lives to ally with us. He has cut off humanitarian aid to millions of the world’s poor without so much as a fig leaf by way of explanation. He has appointed conspiracy nuts and kooks to key government posts like the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Counterterrorism Center, and as Director of National Intelligence. He has deported innocent people to torture chambers in foreign countries. And always and everywhere, he has annihilated truth, most recently by firing the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because her agency produced honest numbers rather than the ones the president preferred.
This presidency is a repudiation of the republican principles of our founding. Trump is a walking wrecking ball of law, tradition, civility, manners, and morals. Many visitors to the nation’s capital won’t know or understand much of that damage. But starting now with the paving of the Rose Garden, and coming soon with the construction of a garish ballroom, they will see a physical representation of a low and shameful time. The once graceful executive mansion will be transformed into something tasteless and embarrassing. It will be both awful and fitting.