We live in a country that we do not recognize because last year, our fellow citizens voted for a dictator as president.
By Lucian K. Truscott IV
Two Americans, Judith A. Voorhees and Charles K. Voorhees, filed a lawsuit today in federal court in Washington D.C. seeking a temporary restraining order “enjoining Defendants and any third parties from further destroying any portion of the White House.” That may sound like slamming the door after the horse has escaped from the barn, but the lawsuit recognizes that if Trump wanted to, he could tear down the entire White House and build some sort of garish South Florida monstrosity in its place, and there would be no way to stop him.
The lawsuit says that Trump broke the law. He violated the National Capital Planning Act of 1952 by failing to submit plans for his “renovation” of the White House to the National Capital Planning Commission. He violated the National Historic Preservation Act (“NHPA”) of 1966 by failing to notify or consult with the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (“ACHP”) and the D.C. State Historic Preservation Office (“SHPO”) before beginning work on the property and by failing to evaluate the effects of any proposed work on the historical property of the White House. Last, but not least, Trump bypassed “legally required oversight by the Commission of Fine Arts (“CFA”), which reviews and advises on the design and aesthetics of the exterior modifications to the White House and its grounds.”
Trump clearly broke several laws by leveling the East Wing of the White House, but he doesn’t care. The Supreme Court—six of the justices anyway—allowed him to break the law and not face any consequences, because they ruled that Trump cannot be charged with a crime for any official act he carries out as president.
Tearing down a portion of the White House is an official act. So, it doesn’t matter that Donald Trump ordered that the East Wing be torn down in favor of a privately funded monument to himself that the White House is already calling “The Donald J. Trump Ballroom.”
It wouldn’t matter if Trump decided to tear down the entire structure of the White House, which has stood, in one form or another, since the year 1800. He could do it. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, looking rather pleased with herself, in answering a question from a reporter, said today that Trump can tear down anything he wants, including the White House or the Jefferson Memorial, because permission is required from the National Capital Planning Commission “only for vertical construction,” but not for demolition.
But of course, she is wrong about that. Trump can tear down any federal structure he wants in Washington D.C. or anywhere else in the country because the Supreme Court said his official actions as president are not to be challenged under law.
It is probably the case that the dimwits on the Supreme Court, in granting to Trump or any future president ultimate power under the unitary executive theory that they are so fond of, did not foresee that Donald Trump would use that power to destroy part of the national monument that he lives in. That is the problem with right-wing beliefs like the unitary executive theory held by the so-called “conservatives” on the Court. They presuppose that the American people will elect at least a sane person fully in possession of his mental faculties and maybe even a person with a conscience.
That did not happen last November. The American people elected a person so consumed by self-adoration and a grossly inflated sense of his worth as a human being that he is utterly and completely out of control. Upon announcing his plans to add a gigantic “ballroom” to the White House, Trump promised that the structure of the building as it stands would not be touched, because he is its “biggest fan.”
He lied. He knew at that moment that he would do anything he wanted to the White House, because that is the way he has lived his life. Trump infamously told Billy Bush on the Access Hollywood tape that he could “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything you want.” He was not only describing his proclivity for sexual assault, he was telling the world that in his life so far, he could do anything he wanted to do and get away with it, because he was Donald Trump.
He is still Donald Trump, and thanks to the Supreme Court of the United States, we are stuck with him. He can tear down the East Wing of the White House. He can slap gold leaf on stair treads in the White House if he wants to. He can hold fund raisers in the White House and line his own pockets with millions of dollars. He can sit in the Oval Office and plan crypto scams and rake in the bucks from MAGA suckers if he wants.
He can order the U.S. military to shoot boats out of the water based on his suspicion that the people on the boats are smuggling drugs, which would be murder under any sane system of laws.
He wakes up in the morning and he breathes air filled with magic dust scattered by a Supreme Court with six justices who think that the power that they have aggregated to themselves and passed on to him allows him to, in his own words, do anything he wants.
Donald Trump can turn the White House into Mar a Lago. His Supreme Court is poised to allow him to go to war against his own people using the United States military. His Supreme Court will allow him to declare an emergency and station soldiers outside polling places in November of next year, because under their theory of executive power, he can do anything he wants.
If you visit Washington D.C. today, or next week, or the week after that, you will see soldiers in the streets carrying rifles, and you will see a national monument, the White House, that has been vandalized by a madman.
We live in a country that we do not recognize because last year, our fellow citizens voted for a dictator as president.
