An excavator sits on the rubble after the East Wing of the White House was demolished, on Tuesday. Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom saga last week followed a familiar Trump-era arc: A bunch of the president’s critics sounded the alarm about his latest provocation – in this case, the sudden and surprising demolition of the East Wing – and a bunch of other people questioned what the big deal was.

He’s just building a ballroom, after all. And the White House kind of needed a ballroom!

“Of all the reasons to criticize President Trump, this must count as the silliest,” the often-Trump-skeptical National Review wrote .

The Washington Post editorial board said Trump was characteristically “pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible.”

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