How Trump is redesigning the White House with "Dictator Chic"

Astrid Lund - Betty MacDonald fan club organizer: "King Donald wants to shine! The question is, how will the U.S. get rid of their king? The French have historically resorted to drastic measures in this regard..................." WAZ How Trump is redesigning the White House with "Dictator Chic" Tobias Köberlein • 17 hours • 3 minutes read First you have no taste, and then money comes along, lots of money – this adaptation of a saying by Ruhr region soccer icon Jürgen Wegmann succinctly sums up the style of the now not-so-new US President Donald Trump. He needs everything to glitter and shine goldenly – Trump loves marble, opulent paintings, heavy curtains, and anything that exudes pomp and splendor. During his first term in office, the Republican had the White House remodeled into the Palazzo Protzi for an estimated $1.75 million. Since then, his taste hasn't improved. Quite the opposite. Trump turns the White House into a Disney version of the Palace of Versailles Trump, who in the first few weeks of his term has issued one executive order after another and behaves like a monarch in his day-to-day political affairs, is apparently also emulating royal role models in his desire for style. Visitors to the Oval Office must feel as if a crazy interior designer had tried to create a Disney version of the Palace of Versailles. The number of paintings featuring the likenesses of former US presidents has multiplied, and some have simply been rehung. As befits an egomaniac like Trump, a painting of himself now hangs in a prominent position in the foyer of the White House. It was created by pop artist Marc Lipp. It shows Trump with a clenched fist immediately after he was shot at a campaign event in July of last year in Butler, Pennsylvania. The likeness of his predecessor, Barack Obama, had to make way for his portrait, which was relegated to the opposite wall. The paintings of his predecessors Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were thrown out of the Oval Office and landed in the stairwell. But the vain self-reflection doesn't stop there: The MAGA president had rows of golden trinkets flown in from his terribly beautiful villa in Mar-a-Lago. Golden vases and figurines now stand on the mantelpiece, and a massive golden paperweight with "TRUMP" printed on it, in capital letters, of course, lies on a side table. Gold as far as the eye can see. There was even room for expensive knick-knacks above the doors. Golden angel figurines flutter there, while Trump can admire himself in full body in one of several Rococo mirrors brought in. The man knows no modesty, no restraint. Compared to him, the style of nouveau riche reality stars like the Geissens or Harald Glööckler looks like Minimal Art or Bauhaus. His penthouse in Manhattan, the various Trump hotels, and his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida are architectural nightmares in gold and marble; petrified tastelessness that somehow made it from an imaginary Rococo period into the present in a time machine. Trump's Style: "Strangely unpresidential, more like royal" Every US president has the right to decorate the Oval Office to his liking. But Trump's decor is "so strangely unpresidential, more like royal," a former White House official who has worked for Biden and Obama told CNN. It's fitting, then, that Trump isn't finished redesigning his official residence yet. A ballroom for state dinners is to be built on the South Lawn. The model, quite immodestly, is the famous Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. By the time it's completed, the Washington headquarters will likely look like the lavish residence of a Russian oligarch. The entire ensemble is freshly revamped in "dictator chic," as the website Politico once called Trump's architectural madness. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is sending his love from Moscow. Perhaps he'll be coming for a state visit soon.