The latest aesthetic horror show that President Donald Trump has foisted upon the White House appeared Wednesday: a new sign seemingly taped to the wall at the end of the colonnade connecting the West Wing and the Executive Mansion. With words printed in golden ink and in a font akin to the “Eat Pray Love” signs adored by moms nationwide, three sheets of paper announce what lies behind the nearby glass door: “The Oval Office.”
His hyperfocus on a vision of 24-karat luxury is increasingly disconnected from reality.
Trump’s sense of style was questionable long before the “all gold everything” decor of his second term. His single-minded determination to place his own visual stamp on the seat of executive power is a continuation of his decades as a realtor obsessed with imagery, often inserting himself into the most minute details of his properties’ designs. But this approach raises far deeper concerns.
Trump has attempted to bring that level of autocratic control to the presidency in matters of both staggering consequence and utter banality. His hyperfocus on a vision of 24-karat luxury is increasingly disconnected from reality as his policies, coupled with the longest federal shutdown in history, leave millions of Americans facing food insecurity and rising prices.
The transformation began quickly after Trump’s second inauguration. Within weeks, an endless string of golden knick-knacks were strewn about the Oval Office; their numbers have only multiplied since then. The Rose Garden was paved over in favor of “the Rose Garden Club,” a facsimile of the patio at his Mar-a-Largo country club. After claiming that the East Wing would remain untouched, Trump greenlit its destruction last month to make room for a massive golden ballroom with an estimated $300 million price tag.
Despite the ongoing shutdown, the tone-deaf paeans to splendor have continued apace. Last week, Trump touted a refurbishment of the Lincoln Bedroom’s bathroom. He posted dozens of pictures to Truth Social showing off the “black and white polished Statuary marble” that now covers the executive chamber from floor to ceiling. “The bathroom also sports gold-colored fixtures and accents — including the bath and sink faucets, wall sconces and trash bin — as well as a crystal hanging chandelier,” CNBC reported.
Later that evening, Trump attended a “Great Gatsby”-themed Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago club, with attendees merrily cosplaying pre-Depression decadence while food bank lines overflowed.
Trump’s maximalist design preferences are the stuff of legend. His penthouse apartment in Trump Tower is a rococo calamity with gold as far as the eye can see. When he purchased Mar-a-Lago in 1986, the mansion was already considered, in the words of the Chicago Tribune, a “monument to Roaring ’20s ostentation.” His love of gold and marble was at least partially influenced by his first wife, Ivanka, who served as his chief interior designer in the 1980s. The then-power couple were intimately involved in the minutia of his then-expanding portfolio. A 1984 feature in The New York Times, published as Trump prepared to open the first of his doomed Atlantic City casinos, said the two made “thousands of decisions, from picking all the wallpapers, curtain backings and braid for the doormen’s uniforms to menus and doorknobs.”
The decades have not lessened that trend, even as more urgent matters should draw his attention. The Wall Street Journal reported in April that Trump flew in his “gold guy,” who worked on Mar-a-Lago, to add the gold molding that now encircles the Oval Office. And based on renderings he’s showed to journalists, we can only assume that the planned White House ballroom will be afforded similar treatment. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters last month that her boss’ “heart and his mind is always churning about how to improve things here on the White House grounds. But at this moment in time, of course, the ballroom is really the president’s main priority.”
The president’s aurum-plated predilections have long been a punchline for others. In 1990, the Baltimore Sun reported that a new line of hotels in the region would provide “luxury of a very different type than the Donald Trump model.” The chain will “offer luxury by inference,” the hotel’s general manager said. “It is achieved through attention to total comfort, rather than by gold fixtures and lots of fake marble in the bathrooms.”
It’s becoming harder to maintain that fiction, though, as low-income Americans get particularly pummeled by Trump’s policies.
That hasn’t stopped Trump from peddling his vision of luxury to the masses. When asked how he was moving the wildly expensive condos at Trump Tower in 1984, he simply told the Times: “You sell them a fantasy.” It’s a mantra that was regurgitated in his (ghostwritten) “Art of the Deal” and in his second act as a pop culture phenomenon when hosting “The Apprentice.” Through all his ventures, including the presidency itself, Trump has attempted to sell would-be supporters on the dream that they could be just as rich as him if they only followed his lead. As Northwestern marketing professor Tim Calkins told The Washington Post shortly after the 2016 election that Trump “capitalized on the power of the Trump brand, which people associate with and aspire to luxury, wealth and celebrity.”
It’s becoming harder to maintain that fiction, though, as low-income Americans get particularly pummeled by Trump’s policies. While these voters supported Trump in both his GOP primary bid and general election victory last year, they’ve gotten the short end of the stick since then while the wealthy have prospered. As the shutdown has continued, he’s heaped blame on Democrats while doing little to reassure his supporters who against all evidence to the contrary hoped that he wouldn’t slash their federal benefits.
The divide between Trump’s fantasy and economic reality is already beginning to show up in polling. Last month, a poll from The Economist/YouGov found that only 35% of Americans making less than $50,000 a year approved of his job performance while 59% disapproved. That’s a marked shift from their September survey, in which he had a 40% approval rate among that demographic and a 55% disapproval rate. Similarly, a more recent poll from CNN/SSRS released Monday found 69% of low earners disapproving of Trump’s performance with only 31% lauding his work.
As of Thursday morning, the White House has given no indication whether the signage outside the Oval Office will be permanent — but given the new “Presidential Wall of Fame” that Trump has installed just a few steps away with similar lettering, the odds seem good. The reshaping of the building in his own image serves as a gold-leafed reflection of his desire to alter the country to suit his own selfish whims. But while the tacky signage and metallic gleam may be easily removed, the pain that the countries needy are currently feeling as the president dithers over marble tiling will be much harder to heal.