Watch it come down
I really don’t know why I was remotely surprised at the news: the current President of the US has demolished part of the White House to build a ballroom, once again exhibiting his well-developed sense of priorities. I can’t understand why he didn’t just build his blasted ballroom on one of his golf courses. Instead he has chosen to destroy the East Wing.
Now I know quite a bit about the West Wing due to it having had extensive media coverage – the Oval Office, Cabinet Room and Situation Room are all housed there. You will not be surprised to learn that this area is unscathed. But the East Wing? This happens to include the office of the First Lady, which was first given status by Eleanor Roosevelt during her husband’s administration. She used the East Wing for official functions, as a base of operations for her activism and as a space for interacting with groups representing the American people, from the Girl Scouts to the Women’s Trade Union League. From the East Wing, Roosevelt expanded the role of First Lady, working to highlight women. Her first news conference, on March 6, 1933, featured 35 reporters, all of them women. During her tenure, she held nearly 350 news conferences, helping to elevate the role of women in national and political life, as well as in journalism.
Betty Ford argued to increase pay for her staff in the East Wing. In 1977 Rosalynn Carter became the first first lady to keep her own office there, known as the Office of the First Lady’s Projects. It was also in the East Wing that Laura Bush established the First Lady’s Family Literacy Initiative, which encouraged families to read together, and where Michelle Obama oversaw her Let’s Move campaign, promoting physical activity and specifically engaging children from the D.C. community.
People have also historically chosen to protest outside the East Wing as a way of making themselves seen and getting the attention of the first lady, including on the issue of civil rights in the 1960s, which Lady Bird Johnson supported.
Historians have raised alarms that important American history is being buried in the rubble, including chapters about previous first ladies and their role in uplifting women going back nearly a century. Apparently, members of the Nixon administration asked the White House to stop the renovation or at least allow them to provide input on the preservation of artifacts. One said they feared a time capsule they had installed near a window would be destroyed.
And guess who is financing this latest Trump egotrip? Why, the tech bros and defence industry of course – the usual suspects: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Lockheed Martin and OpenAI. It seems that the current First Lady has not voiced any objections to this act of vandalism and loss of office space, but then I haven’t heard much about Melania’s activities in the community or social sphere. I may be doing her a disservice, but I am not aware of any reports that she has had to resort to the living room to carry on working, which I had to do when my little home office had new windows. It takes all sorts I guess.
I didn’t know the full history of the East Wing – thanks for that Barbara. It makes the whole ballroom fiasco even worse.
Melania?
The First Ladies of the past put her to shame.
Yes they really do!
Dame B