Howls Over the White House Ball Room Remind Us That Progressives Tear Down Only for Destruction

We have recently been treated to another cycle of outrage, this time over the president’s decision to demolish the White House’s East Wing to make way for a new ballroom. This addition to the complex at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue continues the ongoing evolution of the site, which has been under construction since 1792. The White House has changed and expanded over the centuries. Yet to some, the demolition of the East Wing is a crime against history, as if that section of office space was handed down by God’s own hand. Ironically, if that were the case, those same critics would likely rejoice at its removal. But as the news cycle moves on to the next controversy, let’s take a step back and reflect on the broader lesson from this manufactured controversy.

What we see on the presidential grounds is not what we think. The first White House was burned by the British, the second one built on the site in 1814. One thing most people don’t realize is that today’s White House residence is actually the third. Engineers determined in 1948 that the structure was at risk of collapse. President Truman spent much of his presidency living across the street in Blair House as the entire interior of the White House was completely demolished and rebuilt. Only the exterior walls remained. The so-called Lincoln Bedroom, for example, isn’t actually the room where Lincoln slept. No, you can’t walk the same floors that President Adams paced. They, too, were replaced.

In time, the east and west wings, porticos, bunkers, even a swimming pool, and later a bowling alley and press briefing room were added to the residence. The Obama years added further subterranean additions capable of withstanding the power of modern weaponry. To summarize, the White House grounds are in a continual state of reconstruction, update, and addition — just like the rest of the city around it.

For too long, it has been an embarrassment that U.S. presidents had to host state dinners in temporary structures. America, the shining city on the hill, had to resort to a “campground” approach for large formals involving heads of state and cabinet officials. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the charm of rustic settings and enjoy a good campout. But even I host guests in a home with permanent walls, floors, and a roof. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the nation’s chief executive to do the same. The White House was intentionally designed to be humble, not to resemble the grand palaces of Europe, in line with George Washington’s vision. But that doesn’t mean we should neglect the practical needs of the role it exists to support. The building, after all, is made for the presidency, not the other way around.

In many ways, the tools supporting the nation’s chief executive are outdated. This week, President Trump landed in South Korea for a bilateral summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Chinese leader arrived in a modern 747-800 jet, while President Trump arrived on the 39-year-old VC-25, a modified version of the long-obsolete 747-200. There are fewer than 20 of these outdated planes still in service, most of them as cargo freighters or tankers. The modern presidency demands modern infrastructure. If President Trump can secure some of these updates with private funding, all the better.

Hakeem Jeffries' Threats About the Ballroom Are the Real Political Targeting

Critics howl that ballroom construction is an indicator of Trump’s ego, as if no other man who sought the role of America’s chief executive in our lifetime was ambitious. The United States of America is not a second-rate nation, and it shouldn’t settle for its head of state representing the world’s most powerful country using outdated, hand-me-down infrastructure when leaders of smaller nations aren’t saddled with similar constraints. Though a casino on White House grounds would be excessive, a formal ballroom fits the site’s purpose in the most practical ways.

Here’s where the story takes a deeper turn. The faux outrage over the demolition of a section of office space that most Americans have no familiarity with serves as a reminder of something larger. Beyond the endless cycle of media-driven indignation, it reveals a key divide in the predominant worldviews across contemporary America and Western civilization. We conservatives tear down to rebuild, demolishing the old to make way for something better. For progressives, tearing down isn’t about improvement, but destruction for its own sake.

These same people who decry the removal of the East Wing in the time since 2020 celebrated the destruction of statues that had stood across the nation for generations. Even the dead weren’t safe from an insatiable desire for vengeance that is not rightly theirs. In 2022, the city of Richmond, Virginia, forced the exhumation and relocation of Confederate General A.P. Hill’s remains. The hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery were not spared either. A long-standing monument to national reconciliation was dismantled and hidden away in storage. A void is all that’s left in its place. Today’s Bolsheviks are imbued with the same fervor that drove their intellectual ancestors to murder the Russian royal family in 1918, having replaced Tsar governance with an unimaginably cruel and murderous regime — the darkness of which is palpably felt in our time across much of Ukraine. Suffering on mass scale is a close companion to revolutionaries of times past and present. Political turncoat Joe Walsh went so far as to say that anyone who wanted the Democratic nomination for president must commit to tearing down the new ballroom. And replace it with what? Deconstruct and dismantle are their watchwords.

Anyone can destroy something. It takes the creative to build. This saga brings to mind much of the critical theory-laden material I had to read as a doctoral student. Several "studies" lamented that children raised in two-parent homes are privileged because God’s design for marriage produces better outcomes. The critical theorists' answer isn’t to raise everyone up to a better starting point, but to tear down and lower everyone to the same broken state. That worldview is nothing short of madness, and it must be met with an ever firmer commitment to truth.

The left wing is mad about the East Wing only because they’re not the ones who tore it down, and because something grander and more beautiful will rise in its place. As they scream, we must build on and recommit to defeating their rage-based movement. Let our generation not pass the buck.

Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.

Help us continue to report the truth about the Schumer Shutdown. Use promo code POTUS47 to get 74% off your VIP membership.