OPINION:
What is it, exactly, about President Trump’s White House “big, beautiful ballroom” project that triggers leftist Democrats suffering from Trump derangement syndrome?
In remarks Tuesday at the annual slavery commemoration at the President’s House site, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner — a George Soros-backed, soft-on-crime prosecutor — called Mr. Trump a “pain in the ass” and an “embodiment of hate, the embodiment of ignorance and the embodiment of depriving people of their vote and education.”
He was not finished.
“In about 10 to 15 years, we are all going to be sitting here with smiles on our faces,” Mr. Krasner added, channeling Nostradamus (or, more likely, Nostra-dumb-ass). “And I’m going to have a paperweight sitting on my desk. And do you know what that paperweight’s going to be? It’s going to be a piece of the ballroom after we blow it up.”
In his remarks, delivered at an event having nothing at all to do with the ballroom, the Philadelphia prosecutor mused that the ballroom would be demolished in an “official ceremony” and that the rubble would be sold to pay back taxpayers.
However, according to the White House, the estimated $300 million to $400 million cost of the ballroom project is being covered by private individual and corporate donations. Only the upgrade of the underground presidential protective bunker below it, being hardened and modernized, is being paid for with federal tax dollars.
Attorney General Todd Blanche rightly fired back Wednesday in an interview on Fox News: “It’s disgusting that a district attorney in Philadelphia — who, by the way, has a city with its own problems — is so focused on what the president is doing in the White House.”
Still, Mr. Krasner is far from alone on the left in directing such TDS ire at the ballroom, being built on the site of what was the White House’s East Wing, which Mr. Trump had razed in October.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has sued to stop construction of the ballroom, contends that the president must obtain congressional approval for it. That argument has not yet been resolved, though, as the East Wing is gone and construction of the ballroom is already well underway — the Supreme Court has allowed construction to proceed while justices consider the case.
Mr. Krasner’s intemperate outburst called to mind washed-up singer Madonna’s unhinged remarks at an anti-Trump, leftist Women’s March the day after his January 2017 first-term inauguration.
“Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House,” she told the rabidly anti-Trump gathering.
Faced with public pushback, however, Madonna insisted that it was just “one phrase” in a speech and was “wildly taken out of context.”
On Aug. 17, Mr. Trump opined that those who “are opposing the ballroom are people that, in my opinion, are very disloyal to our country.”
The White House State Ballroom, an enormous, 90,000-square-foot construction project, is intended to seat 650 to 1,000 guests. That would eliminate the need for temporary South Lawn tents during major state dinners. The East Room seats only about 200.
The TDS-afflicted opponents of the ballroom are either oblivious to (or, more likely, conveniently ignoring) one other important fact: The forthcoming ballroom will be there long after Mr. Trump has left the White House, regardless of whether he is succeeded by another Republican or by a Democrat.
“This is for future presidents. This isn’t for me,” said Mr. Trump, referring to the ballroom as “a gift” for the nation.
As such, the anti-ballroom diatribes are just stand-ins for leftist, anti-Trump hyperbole.
Even so, the larger question that Mr. Krasner, Reddit trolls and others like them who would take perverse delight in destroying the ballroom after Mr. Trump’s departure must be made to answer is this: What purpose would be served by doing that, and what would replace it once it is demolished, since leaving an enormous hole in the White House grounds is clearly not an option?
One final point: Mr. Krasner and most, if not all, of the other critics of Mr. Trump’s “big, beautiful ballroom” will never set foot in it, so why do they even care?
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