No One Is Tearing Down the Trump Ballroom

By Noah Rothman

Thursday, October 23, 2025

 

What was once a lunatic notion is rapidly congealing into a political litmus test.

 

Because the next Democratic president must “eliminate the traces of the Trump presidency as much as possible,” the activist set is busy lobbying the Democratic Party to prioritize razing the ballroom that will replace the East Wing of the White House. The next Democratic occupant can and should “demolish the Trump Presidential Palace Ballroom and Casino and restore the East Wing and the rest of the White House grounds to their pre-Trump state.” If a Democratic successor to Trump fails to, if not “vow not to use the new ballroom out of protest,” he or she is “guaranteed” to level the place — and on Inauguration Day, too. After all, “this act of vandalism must not stand.”

 

Spoiler alert: It will stand. Indeed, the next Democratic president will make extensive use of the ballroom without apology, if only because it is of immense and objective practical utility.

 

Our editorial identified how such a structure will replace the inordinately expensive and unwieldy tents currently used to host large White House gatherings. But beyond that, even if it had no instrumental value and was purely a vanity project, why on Earth would these Democratic partisans convince themselves that their party’s White House prospects would forgo the trappings of power and prestige? Are they familiar with the Democratic Party?

 

Is Gavin “French Laundry” Newsom expected to renounce his material wealth and commit to asceticism? Will angry posters compel former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (D., McKinsey) to observe monastic minimalism? Do we believe Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would swear off the debutante’s reception she presently receives wherever she goes, but only in her own house?

 

The very premise is absurd. But the Democratic Party’s aspirants are slaves to fashion. For that reason, it’s sensible to expect that at least some Democrats will bow to the ephemeral pressure their social media feeds are putting on them and pledge to restore the status quo ante — a cramped and underutilized space devoted to welcoming guests and housing the First Lady’s staff. But those who make that promise, if only to outflank their competitors for the nomination, are almost certain to go back on their word the moment they catch the bus after which they’re chasing.

 

Sure, changes will be made, some of which could be entirely uncontroversial — even welcome. Given the president’s taste, we should assume that the garish, unrepublican gold embellishments will be excessive. Few tears will be shed for their removal. Likewise, the White House’s asymmetry will be an eyesore — one that might be remedied by similarly expanding the West Wing. But if anyone thinks that a future Democrat will eschew the chance to host state dinners, receptions for foreign dignitaries, and other major events on White House grounds without getting their shoes dirty, they’re nuts.

 

And if that mania derives from the belief that a future president can somehow erase Donald Trump’s decade-long impact on American politics and history, we can see why they’ve subordinated all they know about the Democratic Party to that madness. It is magical thinking fueled by animus. As former presidential staffers have acknowledged, the White House’s constraints “prevented” them from “doing the events that they wanted by the size of the rooms as they currently exist.” The need for such a space preceded Trump because the demand for one preceded Trump, and that demand will persist long after he’s gone.

 

We should expect that at least a handful of enterprising Democratic presidential hopefuls will pander to the social media hordes working themselves into a lather over the images of construction on the White House grounds. Maybe their outrage will persist long after those images are consigned to memory and the ballroom is in use — even, perhaps, by those very Democratic hopefuls. They can rage at the sight of that ballroom all they like, but tearing it down is not a promise that anyone will keep.