With protests across the country regarding the Trump administration's ill-designed travel ban, growing resistance to expansion of deportations, widespread opposition to President Trump's alleged sexism, along with Michael Flynn's forced resignation, Trump's bizarre and angry phone calls with foreign leaders, his habitual falsehoods, his spokesperson Kellyanne Conway being sidelined off television, and the oddity of Steve Bannon in the White House inner circle, in addition to Trump's continued arguing about his inaugural crowd's size, it seems much more than a month since Trump moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and quickly cheapened the Oval Office with super-kitschy gold drapes, reminiscent of the tawdry throne ornamentations in Saddam Hussein's gaudy palaces.
“Saddam's extravagance knew no bounds,” reported Colin Freeman in London's Telegraph. “Vast crystal chandeliers hang from the ceilings, ornate balconies straight out of Tony Montana's villa in Scarface .”
In The New Yorker's “Holding Trump Accountable,” George Packer saw the installation of more kitschy gold drapes in another part of the White House as signaling something more than repetitive poor taste: “The gaudy gold drapery of the East Room contributed to the impression that at any moment Trump might declare himself President for Life, and a flunky would appear from behind the curtain to pin the Medal of National Greatness on his suit jacket, while, backstage, officials and generals discussed his overthrow.”
There hasn't been enough time to give the White House Trump's full, overblown gold treatment, a fake elegance that was on full display for Joker Poker fans at Trump's Taj Mahal casino resort on the Atlantic City boardwalk prior to its shuttering.
Even with the closing of “the Taj,” as it's referred to in the nearby pawn shops, there's no lack of the flashy and grandiose if you follow the gold to what now appear to be three White Houses, and perhaps a fourth on its way in New Jersey — counting the three-floor, $100 million Trump Tower penthouse, with its Louis XIV-style, 24-carat-gold-trimmed crown mouldings and columns, gold cherubs, lamps and cups, and its supremely welcoming gold and diamond front door; plus the outrageously ornate Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., built by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post in the pre-Depression 1920s; and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J., with its 500 acres and 1930s Georgian-manor main clubhouse.
Tiny Bedminster “is preparing for the daunting prospect that the local Trump golf course will serve as a sort of northern White House for as many as 10 weekends a year,” reported Drew Harwell in The Washington Post.
Trump's three Mar-a-Lago trips in his first month as president cost the federal Treasury an estimated $10 million, in addition to Palm Beach's extra costs for expanded security operations.
New York City is paying $500,000 a day to guard Trump Tower, according to police estimates, an added cost for the city that could reach $183 million per year.
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics emeritus at Robert Morris University and a local restaurateur (rrreiland@aol.com).
