He’s afraid. Trump looked at the election results and was terrified that in two years, at most, his legacy was going to be demolished, and his legacy, of course, is the tacky gold geegaws he has glued to the walls of the oval office. That’s his precious. He thinks of himself as a builder, an architectural genius, and that he will be remembered for his gifts to the American people: his stupid ballroom that no one asked for, his line of presidential portraits that mock his predecessors, his helipad, his tasteless golden decorations, his arch, his insufferable efforts to put his name on every cultural landmark. They’re all going to be swept away as one of the first and easiest act of his successor. He knows it. We all know it. Whoever takes the oval office someday, we’re all going to be disappointed if they don’t erase that stupid man’s ugly efforts to mar a historical place.
We know that is what he fears, because he rushed to his office to sign another executive proclamation to say they can’t do that.
In the days since his party suffered historic defeats in the midterm elections, the president has seemingly turned his attention to the many renovation projects he has begun across the nation’s capital. Sitting behind the Resolute Desk on Thursday, Trump declared the Oval Office a
national monument.
I’m going to be signing a document which will make them into a landmark for the ages,he told reporters in the gold-covered Oval Office.According to the president, the proclamation would ensure the West Wing rooms would not be
touched by anybody, destroyed, ripped down by stupid people, in order to build something in a slightly different shape.
I just thought it was very important that nobody be allowed to come and take it down and try and do something with it,he said.
Every once in a while they’ll look and they’ll say, oh, maybe what we’ll do is we’ll put some glass up that’s a little bit better or something, and I say no, you’re not going to do anything. We’re going to leave this as it is,he continued.
If anyone ever decides to come and start knocking down walls, you’ll call me wherever I may be, and I will come back here and I will make sure it never happens.
Right. The president who ignored laws and planning regulations to take a bulldozer to the East Wing now thinks his signature is all it takes to keep his petty treasures in the face of all future presidents. He’s stupid.
He’s not King Arthur, who will rise from his tomb to restore his kingdom when it is threatened. He’s going to be rotting in his grave, where the only gold he’ll see is the trickle of urine from all the visitors there to revel in his defeat.
Thank goodness he isn’t the Pope! Just imagine what he’d do the the Michelangelo frescoes.
Damnatio Memoriae Trump
Our next President should take a leaf from Trump’s own book, and immediately narrow this “National Monument” down to a single ketchup stain on the Oval Office wall.
It is still better that he plays around with his tacky golden toys and “rebuilds” (destroys) US monuments than f..ing around in politics.
In the near future, at least get rid of the Oval Office poop stained office chairs.
Making the White House a national monument. Cute. Too bad for Trump that Republicans have already set a precedent that new presidents can scrap national monuments whenever they want (see Bears’ Ears).
He has more to worry about then his tacky Home Depot gold onlays and medallions. I had to look up those names on Google because who decorates anything like that any more. Google says these are from the Baroque and Rococo eras of home decoration. Must be before my time.
The Epstein files are heavily redacted and Trump reportedly doesn’t look good in them. The Democrats have a chance to actually publish them in two months.
The GOP and Trump miss a basic principle of naming stuff after people.
It is considered an honor and people don’t name things after themselves.
The people and their elected leaders name things after people they think deserve it.
That is why Washington DC and Washington state are named after George Washington. Etc..
That is also why the Irvine, California airport is the John Wayne Airport and the Washington DC airport is the Reagan airport. Obviously, the whole naming things procedure doesn’t work a lot of the time.
The next president should just rip out all the gilded Trump plastic and take down every picture and painting. regardless of what any law Trump might get through Congress. Oh, and burn those curtains. Tear down the arch and the ballroom, unless they can be evaluated and determined if they can be remolded and serve some good purpose. Renaming them after some of the American citizens killed by ICE would be a nice touch. Redo the golf course so average Washingtonians can afford it. Sink his 747 gift and let it live with the fishes. I could go on; it would be wise for Congress to commission me to oversee these projects. I could be the Elon Musk/Doge of Trumps self-commemorating disasters.
@8 stuffin
That is kind of the point though. The only reason we have had to put up with 99% of the crap he has signed is because he had control over almost the entire rest of the government, so no one could pass anything, or otherwise counter, his bullshit executive orders. They are not laws. They are like a Pope’s opinions – until the rest of the government make then actually law, they are temporary “opinions” that, unfortunately, have the strength of laws, since people willingly follow them. Nearly all of the crap he has signed since back in office can be stripped away with one single signature of a new order, countermanding all his orders. Its a bit more complicated to scrap them via actual legislation, and we don’t have SCOTUS on our side – who could have also just flat out said, “No, you really can’t do that.”, instead of either letting him, and/or doing nothing at all about it, as the majority of them have been. But, they are not “laws”. They are memos, written by an idiot, which only have the force of law because he stacked every government agency with cronies, who would follow them, or would have arrested anyone that didn’t.
In practical terms, while his ass is still stinking up the White House, they function as laws. The second his rotting self leaves, they become bits of paper he crayoned on.
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Stuffin @ #8
If I remember correctly, the 747 was essentially a $400M gift (bribe) to the rapist pedophile, not to the United States, from the Qatari royals and it becomes his when he is gone from office. Perhaps he can use it to flee to Russia to avoid prosecution or, even better, be buried in it.
@11 – Larry
Gifts from Foreign Governments: Yes, they are considered property of the United States government. Under the U.S. Constitution (Foreign Emoluments Clause) and the Foreign Gifts and Decorations Act, the President cannot personally keep gifts from foreign officials or governments if they exceed a “minimal value” (currently set at $480). These items are turned over to the General Services Administration (GSA) and managed by the National Archives and Records Administration, eventually going on display in a presidential library. If a President wishes to keep a foreign gift, they must officially purchase it from the government at market value
I see a great need for establishing a permanent and healthy balance between:
» wiping all trace of tRUMP from the face of the earth
and
» keeping some obvious tokens of his horrible existence as a reminder to history to NOT allow similar murder and destruction to ever happen again.
p.s. PZ used a very appropriate image from the movie of Heinlein’s Star Ship Troopers were the monster from whence issued all the destruction and murder was finally captured and was afraid. However, I don’t think tRUMP’s insatiable ego will ever allow him to consciously recognize fear.
@stuffin #8:
My understanding is that they already can, and that’s why Trump hates it and is trying to rebuild it as a professional course so they can’t. (checks) Okay, so there are actually two golf courses, the East Potomac golf course which is pretty much legally parkland, and which can currently be played on for only $29 a round, but Trump wants to shut down for over a year and rebuild as a professional Masters-level course. Trump’s people already removed hundreds of trees in direct violation of a court order. The other course is the Langston golf course which Trump prematurely terminated the lease on, that was built on a landfill during segregation in the 1930s and which has been black-owned and operated since then… and which was used as a staging ground for the golf club that did manage to get black people playing on the East Potomac course a few years later and eventually got that course officially desegregated (because, again, it was legally parkland and so was technically owned by the taxpayers).
So a good chunk of this is probably as much racism on Trump’s part as anything else. The idea of Black people enjoying the same sport he does just seems like the sort of thing that would annoy him.
@larry #11, stuffin #12:
Yes, the 747 was a bribe for him, supposedly as the new Air Force One (though numerous people pointed out at the time that the amount of money and work to bring it up to capabilities of the usual Air Force One would be prohibitive since it wasn’t built with all those security requirements in mind). (And yeah, I know that ‘Air Force One’ is nominally any plane that the President happens to be flying on.) I believe the ‘plan’ was that the plane was going to be ‘donated’ to the Trump Presidential Library, so it wouldn’t technically be his. Needless to say, a fair amount of snarky comments about the idea of Trump, who barely reads, having a presidential library ensued.
The ancient historian Sir Ronald Syme famously said of Lucius Cornelius Sulla that the only thing he couldn’t abolish was his own example.Seems apt.
Sulla tried as hard as possible to reconstruct the Roman state in what he took to be a stable and effective form – expand the senate, get rid of his rivals and troublemakers, reform senatorial policy, limit the powers of the Tribunes of the Plebs, and dozens of other policies. He even did a Cincinnatus and retired after a year or two as Dictator to live with his Greek actor boyfriend Metrobius on the coast. Unfortunately he had seized power with his armies after gaining their loyalty on extended campaigns in the east, and three decades later one Julius Caesar did exactly the same thing, which did for the Republic entirely.
stuffing @ #12
While it is true that gifts belong to the US government, the rapist pedophile has said he plans to donate it to his “library” and that he will not use it.
This is trump we’re talking about. When has anything he’s said not been a flat out lie? Further, when has any law or rule that he wants to violate for his personal benefit, not been violated? Only because the Democrats will control Congress, is it possible that ownership will remain with the government. If the repugs had maintained their lock, the plane would be sitting in personal hangar right now.
the only gold he’ll see is the trickle of urine from all the visitors there
I heard that he was into that sort of thing.
Who knows what will become of the plane, as it’s merely one smallish example of the corruption and grift that the voting public has overwhelmingly rejected. 95% of US counties moving to the left is a far more accurate representation of American voters than the 2024 elections, where nearly 1/3 simply couldn’t be bothered to vote.
I note that some of the chief enablers of the trump shitshow sit on the Supreme Court, and are nearly the same age as Dementia Don. BTW, does McConnell still count as a Senator?
Trump’s vanity projects always make me think of Cato the Elder. People would ask Cato whether he was disappointed that, after his distinguished career, Rome had never put up a statue to him. He would just chuckle and say that he’d rather not have a statue and hear people asking why he didn’t, than have a statue in his honor but hear people ask why he did. (He eventually did get a statue.) President Donald J. Trump is utterly incapable of comprehending that attitude.
Over ⅓ didn’t bother to vote in Minnesota this time around, either.
How is that not an accurate representation?
I grant it was the second-best, participation-wise.
(It’s not how many vote, but for who they vote)
—
“The University of Florida’s Election Lab calculated Minnesota’s turnout rate among eligible voters at 65.16%. Maine edged out Minnesota with 65.78%.
Only six states scored 60% or above.”
(https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-election-record-turnout/601901321)
It depends on who doesn’t bother to vote. I expect a lot of the maga voters either stayed home, or voted for the Democrat as a protest vote. The results are pretty astounding. America as a whole just came together and made Donnie the lamest duck ever.
95% of US counties moving left is the important metric.
John Morales @ 21
Sweden used to have a participstion rate of 90% when I grew up. The latest election it was around 80%, an increase from the previous time.
Conclusion: Having a system with proportional representation helps keeping the public engaged. More political parties to choose from. (Do not repeat the mistake of the Weimar Republic, have a threshold of 4-6% to keep out the microparties).
.
Maine has ranked-choice election, but it is relatively new, so maybe people are still disengaged from seeing their votes make no difference in the past?
.
Britain is the country USA imitated with its ‘first past the post’ system. It has been a disaster for Britain, and it has been a disaster for USA. It lives on because the bosses have learned to game the system. ABOLISH IT.
.
Also, no corporate megadonors. You may be surprised that most Scandy conservative politicians are reasonable. This is because they have not been bought. I do not vote for them, but it is possible to coexist.
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And now, returning to the issue of the thread: a scared villain.
shermanj @ 14
The flawed film version that provided the image may be too old for the young ones to get the reference.
.
Also, the GM biological unit was created to have superior leadership abilities compared to the ‘worker ant’ arthropod minions.
.
I am at a loss to find a suitable reference.
Possibly Beria, at the end of the film “The Death of Stalin”. But he was never the top boss.
[OT]
Birger @24, the film has bugger-all to do with the source material; it got everything wrong, pretty much.
What is in that movie is the crap from someone who proudly did NOT read the work and made up their own shit.
There is no other reference, suitable or otherwise. There was never a “it’s afraid!” moment.
(Gad, I hate these references that utterly repudiate the source material)
shermanj’s comment merely exposed his ignorance about both the movie and the book.
I haven’t seen a demographic breakdown of the vote in each state but I find it hard to believe that non-voters who had registered as Democratic would break 20%. I would hope it was much less given the stakes. As far as the magats, who cares? The skies is the limit there. As far as those who hadn’t even registered, why the fuck are they living here?
He still doesn’t get it.
“If anyone ever decides to come and start knocking down walls, you’ll call me wherever I may be, and I will come back here and I will make sure it never happens.”
That’s gonna be damn difficult to do while he is chained to a damp stone wall in the dark, afraid and alone.
If the Orange One ever rises from his tomb, it’ll be nothing like King Arthur. It’ll be much more like Vlad Tepes, the inspiration for another riser from the grave.
@28 He won’t rise, he’ll ooze out of his crypt.
@ ^ gijoel & Jaws : Someone better stake his body vampire stye to make sure..
@25. John Morales :
Oh FFS. Blockquote fail. Yáll know where yeah?
Wish we could edit – clarity fix – my lines from #31 r* :
I know history etc..but still wot d L is up w tha?
.** Why is Y too letters too long two?
Why is abbrieviation such a long word?
Make everythin’ phonetic, er, I mean fonetick I say!
Dóh! Make tha :
Why is Y two letters too long? Which is how I intended to write tha.
Also Y not spell it ‘Pho’ as in the Vietnamese soup, ‘net’ as in the constellation Reticulum* and ‘ick’ as in the sound of disgust so Phonitick .. oh wait.. F!
O’ course dialects, prounciations etc.. vary so much & A-n-y-w-a-y..
As long as folks get the jist.
.* See : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticulum
To expose some truth that should stomp down some idiotic false claims about me by @25 morales, if he would carefully read my comment @14, it was about PZ’s appropriate image and text, ‘it’s afraid’, merely referencing the Heinlein source. Contrary to the ignorant remark, I, did, indeed, read the Heinlein book decades ago. I did not like the movie. I did like PZ’s inference that tRUMP is afraid for probably the first time in his disgusting life.
Here’s Trump canceling Biden’s EOs, Including some that Biden had signed just a few days before Trump took office.
Of course, Trump didn’t limit himself to only canceling Biden’s EOs.
Lawdork gave the historical background to Trump’s cancelling EOs going back to 1965 signed by LBJ.
[OT]
There is no such element in the source, and you wrote ‘the monster from whence issued all the destruction and murder was finally captured and was afraid’ where the captive is one of the Brain caste, rather than of the Warrior or Worker castes. It was not a point source, the Bugs were an interstellar empire themselves. Their rulers were the Queen caste, and there is more than one of those too.
So did I, but I did not forget it or confuse it with the movie.
The source for that scene is not Heinlein, it is Verhoeven.
In the book, the captured Brain Bug is to be a source of intelligence.
— in short, not at all analogous. Trump has not been captured, has he?
as others have pointed out – EO by 47 can be undone by an EO from 48 (whoever they turn out to be) this “national monument ” will last 1 day into the next administration- I do expect the Smithsonian or some other institution to create a museum exhibit – a mockup of 47’s oval office as a monument to bad taste and gaudiness –
It’s so very sad. It is unclear whether @38 morales is simply incapable of understanding and accepting the meaning of my comments or if he is just being childishly petty toward others, as usual.
I have more important things to do than continue to play his peevish games. But, I really appreciate the substantive info that PZ and responsible commenters provide here.
I don’t know guys; I don’t think we need to take his name off of everything…
Petition to the US Government to rename the Epstein files to the Trump files…