No one loves home improvement shows quite like me. HGTV practically raised me. However, I’ve always been more of a fan of the restoration shows; it kills me to see the prettiest pink 1950s tiles ripped up and covered by millennial gray. All of that history and character – erased. This is how I feel about Trump’s renovations to the White House. I hate everything about it. It’s tacky, gaudy and out of place with the overall design of the building. I feel the same way about his policies, which are heartless, thoughtless and misaligned with the American spirit. In a way, the White House – the people’s house – is a perfect representation of the many ways Trump is destroying our country.
The Oval Office and Cabinet Room
Changing up the Oval Office isn’t unique to Trump. Almost every president in U.S. history has done this since William Taft moved the president’s office there in 1909. Often, the color of the walls is changed, and carpets and curtains are swapped out to match the president’s personal style. President Trump’s style can be best described as “Caesars Palace Vegas.” He kept up the gold curtains and switched Clinton’s blue rug for Reagan’s white one with golden laurels on the side. He continues this theme in a more intense renovation: the addition of aureate embellishments to the crown molding, fireplace and walls. The visual assault doesn’t stop, for he filled the walls with golden frames of past presidents, and one similarly styled mirror right next to them for his morning affirmations. He has almost as many gold urns sitting on the mantel as he does felony counts, adding to his list of crimes committed – this time to our eyes. He even spread this change to the Cabinet Room, adding more gold and three ornate chandeliers. It all sums up his priorities: to appear luxurious and opulent, like a king prerevolution, not like a humble servant of the American people.
He also stationed military flags in both rooms, similarly to how he stationed the National Guard in multiple U.S. cities, including D.C., Portland and Los Angeles. He also sent the Marines to the latter, according to the New York Times. Further, he has said that he is ready to send “more than the National Guard” into our cities, according to the Times. The U.S. military has effectively become a personal police of the American people for the president, used at his own will. Worse still is his use of ICE to detain immigrants – legal and not – in increasingly violent ways. These masked miscreants are masquerading as heroes and claim they are being “demonized,” even as they rip harmless families apart through brutal, unregulated force and are given permission by the Supreme Court to racially profile people.
Trump’s choice of presidents to herald on his wall also tells an important tale. While great men like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln have made the cut, so have Andrew Jackson (who made his fortune off the interstate slave trade and was responsible for the Trail of Tears) and James Polk (who instigated territorial expansion that hastened the seccession and Civil War). Giving these men wall space shows who Trump deems valuable. Just this October, he reinstalled a statue of Confederate Gen. Albert Pike in D.C. Additionally, his administration has restored the names of multiple military bases that were changed because of their racist ties. This includes Fort Gregg-Adams in Virginia, renamed after two exemplary Black military leaders. It has now reverted to Fort Lee (yes, that Lee, though the Army is claiming the name is now honoring a Buffalo Soldier, Pvt. Fitz Lee).
The Rose Garden
The Rose Garden has been part of the White House since 1903, first appearing as a colonial-style garden under Edith Roosevelt until it gained its roses in 1913 with Ellen Wilson. It has lived many lives since then, renovated by John F. Kennedy in 1962 to be more of a communal space. Throughout all of these changes, it has remained a lush, green space with beautiful light and lively flowers. In August of this year, however, that changed. The roses were minimized by the insertion of a large patio area. The brutalist “Florida tiles” added to the ground were adorned with enough white metal tables and chairs to host an army – or the Republican lawmakers Trump referred to as the “Rose Garden Club.” The only color seen in the garden now comes from the table umbrellas in a shade seemingly swatched from the president’s own tangerine complexion.
As with our dear Rose Garden, Trump has left an industrial-sized stain on our country’s environment. For starters, he withdrew again from the Paris Climate Agreement (as he originally did during his first term), making the U.S. one of four countries excluded from this pact to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
For a man who does not believe in climate change, this isn’t much of a surprise. Neither are his clean energy subsidies cuts, particularly attacking wind farms on both public and private lands. Nor are his new fossil fuel projects, which are fast-tracked without environmental regulation checks due to his declaration of an “energy emergency.” This has led to drilling into protected areas of Alaska. Not only are his actions setting us back in our environmental efforts to curb our greenhouse gas emissions, but they are raising our energy prices (almost 10% in the last year) through the increased approval of new AI data centers which drain our clean water sources. He is making our home into a business venture, complete with an over $75 million donation from the fossil fuel industry towards his 2024 campaign.
West Colonnade
A smaller change occurred in September along the wall of the West Colonnade. The columns previously faced a plain white wall with lunette windows.
Now, they contrast with the same garish gold adorning the Oval Office, applied in tacky inlays that look like they could reside on the side of an early 2000s wedding cake. Below them are gold-framed photos of all past presidents arranged in chronological order, right to left. Beyond simply being ugly, the design appears poorly planned. The last window ledge is missing the gold inlay that the rest have and from Bill Clinton on, the frames stagger upwards, running out of flat space like a child underestimating how long the word “birthday” is on their mother’s card. These designs are metaphors for Trump’s ‘speak before you think’ mentality, which has led to numerous brazen comments about his opponents, policies and Arnold Palmer’s endowment in a sporadic array that has been jokingly referred to by SNL as “the weave.”
One notable addition to the Colonnade is not a glittering wall tattoo, but one of the photographs. In place of Joe Biden’s portrait is a framed depiction of an autopen signing the former president’s name, feeding into a theory that Biden did not sign his own documents due to his presumed cognitive decline. This kindergarten behavior also exists outside of Trump’s interior design and echoes on his social media as he uses the presidency as a bully pulpit towards his adversaries. He has released multiple AI-generated videos of Democrats like House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries and former president Barack Obama donning stereotypical Mexican garb or getting arrested, both racially charged attacks intended to belittle them. Worse, not all of his supporters can tell that these videos are not real. He is spreading misinformation at alarming rates.
East Wing
Finally, we address the big topic: the East Wing. Formerly the East Terrace under Teddy Roosevelt, it was expanded to the East Wing during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s tenure. It became the hub for the first lady and the main entry point for White House guests. Despite all of this history, Trump saw fit to destroy it and replace it with a $300 million ballroom bigger than the main White House itself, though not quite surpassing the size of his ego. Worse? It is dripping in the same faulty opulence as his other renovations — gold, chandeliers and cheap, modern chiavari chairs that you could find in an Elvis-themed wedding chapel.
The destruction of all of this is quite symbolic. Trump is actively erasing women’s accomplishments and safe spaces quicker than he pointed his fingers towards the Democrats when he was accused of being in the Epstein Files. Just look at the Supreme Court that he stacked, which overthrew “Roe v. Wade,” dismantling the reproductive justice system that 63% of Americans think should exist. The “manosphere” that he promotes values toxic masculinity; young men came out to vote for him because they wanted to prioritize themselves — not the women in their lives or their neighbors — and not feel guilty or “inherently racist, misogynistic.”
Trump is turning on his own people as he dismantles the Department of Education and — just recently — when he allowed for the longest government shutdown in U.S. history (beating his own record). The shutdown withheld SNAP benefits from around 42 million hungry Americans, all because Trump refused to broker a treaty that would protect their healthcare benefits. When near 7 million Americans in over 2,700 cities and towns came out to rally against President Trump in October’s “No Kings” protests, his response was to post an AI video of himself in a crown dropping excrement on the American people.
He is attacking the East, be it a wing or the culture that has embedded itself in our great nation of immigrants, and he is working to replace it with a loud, gaudy assembly ground for those he deems his fellow men. What he is doing is all his kind have ever done: taking something that is not his and changing it without the owners’ permission into what he deems “proper.” He is colonizing the land of American diversity with his hateful MAGA movement, ensuring that the worst of the West suffocates the best of the rest.
Proposed “Arc de Trump” and New Lincoln Bathroom
We just can’t seem to get rid of Trump and his narcissism. Outside of the White House, he has proposed an “Arc de Trump” to be built in his honor. Trump also renovated the Lincoln bathroom in floor-to-ceiling loud marble with gold fixtures. It’s almost as though he is moving in and attempting to immortalize himself like a god — unsurprising for a man who sold his own Bible.
His “Trump 2028” hats aren’t a joke. They’re a warning. Like any good home renovation show, if the contractor isn’t doing his job, you fire him. If the stylist isn’t taking your input into account, you find a new one. Trump is destroying our country like he is destroying our White House, but we must ensure it ends here. There are still no kings in America. The only throne we’ll allow him is his newly purchased one of porcelain.
