The Politics of The White House Ballroom

Democrats Will Be Under Enormous Pressure to Tear it Down if They Take Back the White House.

Our 31st President, Herbert Hoover, was an engineer by training, and he decided that a dam was needed on the Colorado river, more specifically on the border of Arizona and Nevada, to help power the west. So, in 1931 he advanced the project, he oversaw the design and construction. It was completed in 1936, 4 years after he left office.

We know it today as the Hoover Dam, but after it was completed Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt blocked his predecessor’s name from being attached to it. Rather than give Hoover, who got it built the credit, it was named the “Boulder Dam.” In 1947 justice was done, Republicans took over the House of Representatives and rightfully renamed it the Hoover Dam.

Roosevelt and the Democrats couldn’t stand Hoover, they weren’t going to give him credit, even if he deserved it. Well, today’s Democrats are even more petty and irrational than the Democrats of the 1930s, and while they have forgotten Herbert Hoover and why they hated him, they have a new enemy in Donald Trump, and reflexively they will oppose him on everything. The Democratic base is rabidly anti Trump. There is no way that elected Democrats can give Trump credit for something and still expect to be renominated. They cannot support anything that could be thought of, or reasonably construed, as a monument to him.

Well, Hoover was an engineer, and Trump is a builder. Trump believes that the White House needs a first-class ballroom for events and state dinners. He doesn’t believe that the current situation is acceptable. He doesn’t think that state dinners held outside, under tents, on a summer night are good enough to entertain foreign dignitaries.

Now I think it should be pointed out that the ballroom, which I believe is useful and needed, is not being built in the residency, instead it is being built on the East Wing, which as of last week was used for office space. Trump is also using private donations.

Democrats aren’t happy about it. Trump is able to build the ballroom on his own volition because a President has great control over the White House property. According to the Wall Street Journal, “The White House is exempt from much of the zoning, permitting and regulatory structure that governs most real-estate projects in the country.” Trump built a career as a builder, and this project will be the easiest project he ever got done. That is, a building project with no red tape.

Democrat Senator Reuben Gallego, from Arizona, suggested over the weekend that to get Democrats to support the ballroom it should be named after Barack Obama. Well, that is a very generous suggestion by Gallego, but Obama had nothing to do with getting the ballroom built. In fact, Trump suggested in 2010, when Obama was in office, that a ballroom be built, but Obama didn’t do it.

There is also a risk for Democrats that naming it after Obama, who didn’t do anything to make it happen, will only remind people that Obama also got a Nobel Peace Prize and he did nothing to earn that either. Such a naming may just remind people of the unfortunate Obama Presidency, and the lesson that employing affirmative action to pick a country’s leaders is a bad idea.

But in this fight, it looks like there is nothing that Democrats can do to stop Trump from building the ballroom. And a ballroom at the White House is more provocative than a dam out west. So, what can Democrats do? Seems to me that the only thing that they can do is to promise Democrats that they will tear it down when they get back into the White House.

The fact is that Democrats will want to erase all evidence of Trump once he leaves office, and a ballroom will be a garish reminder of the big bad orange man. The only sufficient disinfectant for Democrats will be to return the East Wing to the way it looked when Jackie Kennedy had an office there last century. For Democrats it was an enchanted period, they call it Camelot. Think of the history of the East Wing, Jackie worked there while her husband was having sex with interns in the residence.

You may think I am exaggerating, surely the Democrats won’t try to tear it down. Well, over the weekend, Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell, who is most famous for committing adultery with a Chinese spy, summed up the way forward for Democrats tweeting:

“Don’t even think of seeking the Democratic nomination for president unless you pledge to take a wrecking ball to the Trump Ballroom on DAY ONE.”

Swalwell is an unserious person, but I do think in 2028 all the Democrats running for President will be asked on the campaign trail what they will do about the Trump ballroom.

Spending money to tear down a ballroom, that the White House needed, is fiscal insanity. It reminds me of Biden canceling building the southern border wall when he came into office in 2021. The work was paid for, but Biden told the contractors not to do it. They got paid, didn’t put up the wall, and the materials were left to rot in the sun.

Trump Derangement Syndrome may be incurable. It’s a malady so strong that even the exalted Dr. Fauci can’t find a cure. Whether it’s the southern border wall or a ballroom, Democrats will spend and waste taxpayers’ money to tear them down.

But in a general election, it will be a tough question for Democrats to handle. They will want to appeal to normal America. Democratic primary voters will demand a tear down, like Reagan demanded that Gorbachev tear down the Berlin wall, but the electorate at large won’t support such a thing.

I wonder will there be at least one Democratic candidate for President in 2028 who will have the courage to stand up and say, “While I do think Trump was an evil bastard, I do think the ballroom is a good addition to the White House, and if elected I will happily and productively use it.”

I doubt it.

David Shephard is the author of two books: Elections Have Consequences, A Cautionary Tale.

Norton’s Choice: An Inside Politics Exposé: Shephard, David: 9781892538802: Amazon.com: Books