Finally?
Crossposted from a P & E thread:
Trump is doing to the White House what the fourth plane on 9/11 was possibly intended to do. The brave passengers on United Flight 93 prevented the attack.
I’d say that opposite. Trump chose a really bad time for this. Even if Trump is paying for this with corporate bribe money, the optics of starting a multi-million dollar vanity project when federal workers aren’t getting paid looks bad.
I believe the fourth plane’s intended target was the Capital Building not the White House.
I remember it as the White House.
You may be right. I was linking another poster’s contribution.
The Wiki article (all citations in quoted section from 9/11 Commission Report) on Flight 93 is not definitive on this aspect, but it does seem that the White House was a primary DC target, perhaps the top one heading into the day.
“Before the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and Mohammed Atef developed a list of potential targets.[13] Bin Laden wanted to destroy the White House and the Pentagon. Sheikh Mohammed wanted to strike the World Trade Center and all three wanted to hit the Capitol. Atta cautioned bin al-Shibh that the White House proved to be too difficult to reach. Eventually, Atta told bin al-Shibh that Jarrah planned to hit the Capitol.[145] Atta briefly mentioned the possibility of striking a nuclear facility, but relented after the other attack pilots voiced their opposition.[145] Based on an exchange between Atta and bin al-Shibh two days before the attacks, the White House would be the primary target for the fourth plane and the Capitol the secondary target.[36] If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane.[145]"
Gavin Newsom claims that the new ballroom is 3 times bigger than the rest of the White House. I’ve seen some renderings online, many are clearly fake and the ones that are on WhiteHouse.gov are hard to get a good grasp on. But one thing that stands out to me is that the ballroom is too big for the current White House complex. This is one more item that supports the idea that Trump has no intention of leaving the White House. Should he be successful, I believe he’ll tear down the rest of the White House to replace it with a Palace fit for a King.
Who will own it after Trump leaves?
I’ve seen speculation that he isn’t going to wait to do this----that ‘it will be discovered’ that the current demolition project has weakened the White House main building, so that will have to come down, too.
And Donald will go live at Mar-a-Lago for X months while the White House site is turned into a duplicate of Trump Tower.
(Who wants to claim this isn’t possible…anyone?)
On the contrary, I think you are absolutely correct.
I want to claim that this isn’t possible. It would never be as tasteful on the outside as Trump Tower is.
The White House was never supposed to be a gaudy palace. It’s “The People’s House” and is supposed to be a relatively modest residence while functioning as the working center of power for the US. It was supposed to stand in stark contrast to the palaces in Europe because the power is supposed to lie with the people, not the monarchy.
But now we have leaders who see that “supposed to” as a bug, not a feature. I fully expect a very big, very gaudy, very “un American” monstrosity to replace the White House. I still think Trump has to “steal” the next election to have the power to do this, but Sherrerd could be right. Patience isn’t a virtue for Trump and the sycophants in Congress that want to please His Majesty will likely vote to give him exactly what he wants.
Power? Who needs power? His power is in his audacity.
If he plans to redo the whole White House, he’d better do it during this term because he may not live to run again and by then the country may have wised up enough to prevent him from running again. Besides, why wait? So I say he does it so sooner rather than later.
One of the very cool things about the White House is that it’s really much bigger than it looks. I’m sure this is by design, and I’m equally sure that Trump will fuck it up bigly. The White House looks like a pretty impressive mansion, but not a palace. But behind the landscaping, there are passageways leading to other wings, and the totality of the space is pretty huge, even while looking much smaller than it really is.
These two satellite images posted by Bellingcat on Reddit summarize the destruction so far.
Before the demolition:
After the demolition:
I saw (what I think is) the official architect’s scale model of the ballroom. It absolutely dwarfs the Whitehouse and West Wing. Absolute eyesore and disgrace to the historic building.
Not to mention the extensive underground infrastructure and bunker system.
Doesn’t the OP like their thread anymore?
I guess it got boring.