Mary Rooke Commentary and Analysis Writer
The New York Times (NYT) appears to be fully embracing its role as the propaganda arm of the U.S. establishment, as evidenced by its latest opinion on the White House beautification project.
In which the author, Debbie Millman, claims that President Donald Trump’s proposed 90,000-square-foot East Wing ballroom extension represents a fascist-tinged authoritarian overhaul of the White House, transforming it from a symbol of democracy into a “palace” for personal branding and a “royal court” where democracy becomes a “members-only club.”
Like a toddler trying to swiftly finish a coloring page, Millman desperately draws lines attempting to connect the unconnectable without worrying about whether her analogies to King Louis XIV’s Versailles or Benito Mussolini’s marble piazzas supposedly illustrating “unbreachable authority” amount to nothing more than hyperbolic ridiculousness.
One of Trump’s many talents is building beautiful things. It became his mission late in his first term to overhaul our federal buildings, casting down the communist-style concrete slop that has been imposed on us for decades and bringing back the neoclassical style architecture that was once a hallmark of American cities.
Millman’s claim that this beautification project is representative of authoritarianism is, at best, sloppy and overlooks the fact that our Founding Fathers built the White House in the same style as Trump’s ballroom addition. They chose a neoclassical structure inspired by ancient Greek and Roman republics to embody democratic ideals, not those of monarchy or fascism. But what do historical facts matter when the point is to attack anything Trump does?
Today President Trump issued a momentous new Executive Order “Making Federal Architecture Great Again.” The directive states that there must be a preference for classical and traditional architecture when the government is choosing designs for federal buildings. The Order is… pic.twitter.com/o6ifqnraNw
— Justin Shubow (@JustinShubow) August 28, 2025
Maybe Millman and the NYT are just angry with Trump because after years of leftist propaganda telling them that anything minimalistic is intellectual, they can’t help but feel sad about their own lacking attributes when true, unbridled historical beauty stares them in the face. I suppose selling your soul to the establishment has its consequences. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)
Still, it’s unbelievably laughable to see the NYT publish a piece claiming personally raising the funds for a beautification project for the people’s house, thereby sparing the taxpayers a $200 million bill, makes the White House a “members-only club.” When Trump is the first president in our lifetime to include Americans in the governing process, after decades of the anti-American establishment ruling our republic through their bureaucratic dictatorship, Trump was the lone voice asking us for our say.
It’s his move to include our opinion that makes them so angry. The ballroom expansion is just the mode of transportation they chose to drive their crying clown show. If scale and grandeur alone are signs of authoritarianism, then the classical buildings like the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court, and Lincoln Memorial must also be “fascist,” according to Millman’s patently absurd conclusion.
Trump is not the first administration to overhaul the landscape and appearance of the White House; Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy all oversaw construction projects. Still, Millman’s selective historical cherry-picking is a blatant attempt at overblown politicization of routine presidential renovations.
“Trump’s executive order to restore classical architecture: I think that speaks to a certain instinct he has for people’s hunger for these forms that have endured and survived for a reason, and that maintain their beauty because they connect with the eternal.
…There’s a reason… pic.twitter.com/hElWf7MaOp
— Jan Jekielek (@JanJekielek) October 1, 2025
The president, regardless of who he is, should reside in a beautiful house because it serves as a symbol of American prosperity and optimism when foreign governments visit. What would Millman and the NYT want instead? Blank walls and erasure of history? No, it’s not hard to guess that their deepest desire is that Americans had elected anyone but Trump, to avoid their painful reality that Americans broke free from their depressing death grip on American culture. (Trump’s Bulldog Will Have Democrats In Fetal Position By End Of The Schumer Shutdown)
Their boos mean nothing because we’ve all seen what makes them cheer. Critics, like Millman, decry the “over-the-top opulence,” to ignore that this is what we voted for in November. And she might be right about the White House being a “member-only club” that her ilk is no longer granted access to because you have to love America and her people to get in, which might be too high a price for her and the NYT to pay.
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