Trump’s Versailles on the Potomac
Last week giant backhoes knocked down the east wing of the White House, “the peoples house” as it became known.
The second president of United States, the learned and thoughtful John Adams, lived there in the newly constructed building alone in 1800. He walked up the stairs to his bedroom lighting the way by a candle to write letters back to his wife, Abigail, who stayed at home in Massachusetts attending their farm
Trump said he loved the White House and wouldn’t touch it. Then he knocked down half of it to build a 90,000 square-foot ballroom. The remaining White House is 33,000 square feet. The ballroom will have gold leaf on the ceiling.
Trump’s Versailles on the Potomac will cost a quarter of a billion dollars, He got the money to build it from a section of the corporate class.
Hitler’s fascist party, the Nazis, got money from the German capitalist class. The clothing manufacturer, Hugo Boss, the car manufacturers Mercedes and Volkswagen, the manufacturer of the poison gas used in the gas chambers, I. B. Farben … You get the picture.
Ninety years later in America sections of the corporate class are donating to our fascist president. Google gave him $22 million. Palantir gave money. Peter Thiel is a big investor—he’s the man who gave us J. D. Vance by financing his Senate career in Ohio.
Lockheed Martin gave $10 million. They’re a major defense contractor in America, although in keeping with the change of the Defense Department name, we should call Lockheed a war contractor.
Booz Alan Hamilton donated money. They provided advice and surveillance during the Iraq war which killed 500,000 Iraqis.
NextEra energy is a contributor. Remember, Trump says that climate changem is a “hoax.”
R.J Reynolds donated money. They make cigarettes. Camels, Winston, Pall Mall. Salem and Newport are their menthol line. Cigarettes kill 480,000 Americans a year, 44,000 by secondhand smoke.
German capitalism was threatened by a powerful organized working class in the 1930s. So, the German capitalists made a deal with Hitler’s Nazi party. They helped Hitler come to power and in return Hiltler crushed the German working class, first the socialists and communists. Then the Jews, whom he scapegoated along with Slavs, Romas, and homosexuals.
In America, Trump has made to deal with a section of the American capitalist class. Some of them will get their names etched in stone on the wall in the new White House ballroom. It is all about access and influence.
Trump calls us “lunatic communists and Marxists.” He scapegoats immigrants and Brown people calling them murderers and rapists, getting them snatched up off our streets and deported.
The new gargantuan ballroom is a monument to American fascism. Trump told us he loved the old White House. It was his favorite building. Then he tore much of it down.
As the great German playwright, Berthold Brecht wrote, in order to honestly talk about fascism, you have to talk about capitalism from which it springs.
We do, and we talk honestly, unlike the lying vulgarian who wants to take us down even as he builds this monstrosity.
—October 21, 2025