Trump Finds Money To Build Monuments To Himself But None To Help The People

 

This is just a part of an excellent post by Thom Hartmann at The Hartmann Report:

The White House has always mattered because of what it represents. It was never supposed to be a palace; it was meant to be the people’s house, a physical reminder that power in America is borrowed, temporary, and accountable. 

That’s why the news that Donald Trump is turning it into a 400 million dollar monument to himself should stop every American cold.

This isn’t a routine renovation. What Trump first floated as a ballroom has ballooned into a massive two story complex with sweeping staircases, private residential quarters, and a secure bridge connecting it directly to the presidential residence.

Streets around the White House will be shut down for years. Historic gardens are being ripped out. A magnolia planted by Franklin Roosevelt in 1942 is gone. Jackie Kennedy’s legacy is treated like landscaping debris.

And this thing won’t just sit on the White House grounds: according to the National Park Service, it will dominate them. It visually overwhelms the West Wing and the Executive Mansion. 

That detail matters. Symbols matter. And this symbol screams something Trump has been telling us for years. In his mind, this country isn’t about shared sacrifice or common good, it’s about power, spectacle, and who gets to live above the law and above the rest of us.

While Trump is building himself a palace, millions of Americans are deciding whether they can afford to see a doctor. Parents are cutting pills in half. Seniors are rationing insulin.

 

Working people are drowning under rent, groceries, student loans, and insurance premiums that climb every year. We’re told healthcare just wasn’t meant to be, that there’s no money for universal care, no money to make life affordable, no money to help people survive.

Funny how there’s always money for marble, steel, and ego when Trump (or any other dictator, anywhere in the world) is running the show. This is how authoritarianism announces itself, and he’s not even trying to be subtle about it.

Strongmen don’t just seize power, they remake the landscape to reflect it. They build grand halls and private corridors, while separating themselves physically and psychologically from the public. They hang huge banners with their faces on them from public buildings.

And now he’s even slapping his name on the Kennedy Center. It’s obscene.