Trump's glittering monstrosity could be his doom

The Washington Post recently published an article in which it noted that any chance President Donald Trump has to complete his $200 million "golden ballroom" at the White House in the near term would necessarily require wholly dodging years-long federal rules and regulations that would otherwise oversee such a project.

Democrats should silently cheer such frenetic desecration in homage to the purely pragmatic, a means to best bring about the last good chance to normalize the republic. Build it, and we will all come — history has a ready precedent.

An inclination to green-light this monstrosity may run counter to every preconceived notion of responsible stewardship, but Americans who are looking to end the encampment of a man who already breezily talks about 2028 should hope that he rams the plans through as thoroughly and recklessly as he did the gift of a new personalized 747 jet.

Other than perhaps the Epstein files, the inchoate ballroom may represent the biggest threat to the Trump administration, a standing monument to opulence in trying times, and an undeniable middle finger to America's struggling working class — a massive percentage of Trump's base.

If one begins by noting that Trump has never committed to peacefully leaving office, it is incumbent to start considering scenarios by which Trump might leave, short of a battle. Any efficient and effective solution necessarily involves cratering support among what was formerly his strongest political hold — MAGA men.

We have yet to see a Trump scandal shake MAGA man's confidence and loyalty to Trump, and it is wrong to presume that a sufficiently large scandal exists, even one involving Jeffrey Epstein. Picture it now: "It's all made-up evidence, a hoax!" No, the only sure means by which MAGA will turn on Trump is irrefutable evidence that he first turned on them.

Enter two converging realities.

One, that ballroom looks like it is going to get built. Trump doesn't usually just float development ideas. They have obliterated the Rose Garden, put up a tennis complex, and gilded the Oval Office. Trump is already making the place his personal palace (A scary enough premise).

Two, perhaps you've noticed, inflation hasn't gone away — indeed, it seems to be increasing, especially grocery prices. This is particularly bad news for Trump since he made grocery prices one of his signature campaign promises, and, of course, we all eat, rich and poor alike.

There is a reason every presidential campaign focuses on "kitchen table issues." The economy drives the mind of the body politic. The typical MAGA man has learned to endure nearly every type of Trump scandal, but he has never had to defend Trump on such weak ground, a shrinking economy.

Indeed, one of the few political threats to Trump can only come to fruition when and if he becomes a real threat to MAGA man's stability, his economic well-being. Simply triggering the libs has largely run its course anyway. No, they want him working for them; he's "their" president, they say.

Presidents can and do survive hard economic times, but only when the voters believe that the president understands that things are bad and is working to fix them. We know that Trump appreciates at least that reality: he fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after one particularly concerning jobs report, a decision he may soon very much regret. Dismissing the messenger and denying the problem exists belies someone more invested in creating his own reality than fixing ours.

Americans not only understand reality but are forced to create it, never more so than when grappling with sending kids to school, debating whether to buy a home, or planning a retirement. Most Americans have never been to a ballroom, don't care if they ever do, much less relate to ever wanting one, never mind build it. On those two or three occasions in a life when we might need a ballroom, we rent and decorate halls.

Very little says "out of touch" quite like prioritizing a project that inherently looks like personal ownership of the White House, extravagant luxury, devastatingly out of touch, and — most damaging — now out of MAGA man's reach.

Trump looks to be building a Versailles-like ballroom at the worst possible time from his perspective, as if history has nothing to teach at all on the subject. Indeed, for once, we should be grateful that Trump remains wholly ignorant of past lessons because his decision to build entails such poor timing, such self-indulgent priorities, such reckless disregard for those he considers his people, that all in opposition should [silently] hope that he breaks sacred ground and that audacious and ostentatious plans are released with blissfully ignorant enthusiasm.

To the extent there is an argument that such desecration of a national treasure must be avoided at all costs, it should only be made while noting that there's no evidence that Trump believes the law dictates when he leaves.

If there is another side, another hope for American democracy, it involves cratering support from the people who make Trump possible. To that end, the plans for the ballroom may be more dangerous to Trump than anything found in the Epstein files — defending that type of scandal comes second nature to MAGA voters now anyway.

These same voters have never been asked to defend Trump through a major economic downturn, and nothing, nothing, says "I don't care" quite like the plans for a ballroom juxtaposed against such worry. We can debate whether Trump really ever cared about his voters, but that misses the point. A ballroom in such times means he now resents them.

The last people who built a Versailles-like ballroom made a similar miscalculation. The faster and more outrageously this thing is built, the less economic pain it will take to bring about a political matter/anti-matter end, the ultimate bonfire of the vanities.

Build it, and even they will come.