Never has the old saying that "a picture is worth 1,000 words" been more applicable than to the latest viral image of Trump's vaulting ballroom currently taking shape, imposing at such a scale as to symbolically shove aside the White House. To wit:
I hope everyone takes a good hard look at this picture.Trump’s under-construction ballroom is now bigger than the rest of the White House. Much bigger.The contrast says everything you need to know about this President and his priorities.
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— James E. Clyburn (@repjamesclyburn.bsky.social) November 11, 2026 at 6:15 PM
Set aside all the laughable talk about lasers, drones, AAA, moats, all that Trump mouth trash serving to cast the entire production as partly needed for national security. The office of the president has an ironlike grip on all such concerns. The more he talks about defense, the more wiggle room he has in litigation meant to stall construction of the monstrosity. This is a ballroom, nothing more, built to fit Trump's insatiable appetite for luxury and built with other people's money, a mix so combustible as to be nuclear.
The White House looks like nothing in its shadow, nothing, never mind the West Wing, and the now no more Rose Garden and uninterrupted lawn, existing only in quaint memory of the pre-Trump era. In a sense, the ballroom is already performing a primary service to the man, casting Trump's shadow over everything that came before him, up to and including the very presidency.
To be sure, the architectural desecration of the grounds, one matched in intensity only by the gilded version occurring inside, causes waves of nausea even in many Trump voters. But symbolically, it is also so much more. Yes, including the aesthetics.
The United States is a young nation. Having just fought a war to displace a king, we didn't start building Euro-type palaces, gilded or otherwise, for our own king. We don't cover every frame in gold because we haven't spent 1,000 years of colonial exploitation collecting the gaudy stuff. We were too busy building a new nation, one with interstates, airports, yes, plenty of aircraft carriers, and banks — new money, not old. In our system, our leaders were mere renters; it never really occurred to anyone to build anything too palatial for any one person. We built monuments to the greats, not Buckingham for Buchanan. Understated was our style.
Until Trump.
And so look at that picture again and breathe in the symbolism of the man who still seeks to make himself king, building the ballroom only he needed, one that dwarfs what, until him, was the only truly important portion of the grounds, that area where decisions that impact billions get made. The most important square acre on earth sits now under the shadow of the monstrosity meant to engulf one man's entertainment, Trump's luxuriation in being Trump.
The midterms didn't cut off Trump's political power (only his legislative and historical fate); he's imbued himself with too much power in that office. But when was the last time you saw Trump care so deeply about an issue like his ballroom? Is he going to care what goes on down the street, up on that hill, investigations and legislation? Will any of his people even show up, knowing Blanche isn't prosecuting anyone for "taking a pass"? No, Trump cares as little about Congress as he does about the average American. But he deeply cares about what's going up across the lawn; he slavishly cares. And that's precisely why Democrats should do all they can to hold it up.
To the extent that Dems can halt the construction of this whitest of elephants, by all means, do so. To the extent they cannot, make Trump beg for every square foot. Make him fight for his golden chandeliers, spend time arguing about the colonnades; force him to explain why he needed the most exquisite and expensive marble; do that all alongside fighting for healthcare, women's rights, making life more affordable, increasing wages, investigations, Epstein, all of it. Give the American people an even greater means to appreciate that Trump cares far more about the shadow of that massive building than he does about the shadow now falling over the fate of the rural hospital.
The 2026 elections constituted a historic "bluenami" in large part because the nation's revulsion outmatched the corrupt self-obsession of the man working within what soon may look like the "Outhouse" beside the scale of Trump's ballroom. (Go ahead, it's going to be hated if completed; name it after him as an ever-present reminder). But there's no rule saying an even bigger blue wave cannot happen again in 2028.
So, Democrats? The charge remains the same with one small tweak: pump out legislation for his veto pen once a week, make sure the bills are aptly named for what Trump rejects. "Healthcare for All," "Nutrition Rebates," "The World Class VA Care Act"— all of it, alongside the investigations.
But it may be just as politically important to stay as far under the man's skin as possible and, by all accounts, that means delaying and obstructing these monuments to himself to the point of hyperventilation. Let him [continue] to support what matters in his mind, make the GOP genuflect to the only desires for which he'll go to the mat. Let the cameras capture every cry, kick, scream, all about his ballroom.
Oh, and don't forget to regularly display "it," as it sits in the picture, the greatest self-given trophy in history, or at least recent history, in the country least likely to tolerate it. The picture is worth more than 1,000 words.
If you don't believe the reasoning offered above, trust in Rep. Clyburn and his post, the man whose formerly impenetrable blood-red state just turned blue against all things Trump, none of which will "stand out" more than America's modern Versailles. We know what happened there.
Set up the storm for a new blue wave and start with things as small as big pictures of a monstrosity fit for this presidency.
Jason Miciak is a Raw Story columnist, former editor at Occupy Democrats, author, attorney, consultant, and single parent girldad. Please follow on Bluesky, and he can be reached at jasonmiciak@gmail.com