Tacky Talk

Welcome to the King's castle:

Miranda argues that Trump’s penchant for Rococo design reflects “an aesthetic that connotes absolute rule” and says “Trump’s gilded gewgaws” are “intimately connected” with “our growing authoritarian state.” Personally, I thought it was pretty authoritarian for the Biden administration to censor Americans’ speech online, round up pro-lifers in armed raids, and brand parents with the language of “domestic terrorism” for raising concerns at school board meetings. But Biden’s taste is more New England elitist than Palm Beach, so I guess that makes it OK? Miranda even compares Trump’s deportation of illegally present aliens and suspected gang members to Louis XIV throwing Frenchmen into the Bastille. Because the expulsion of foreign lawbreakers, not the Biden administration’s actual attempt to imprison its political opposition, is obviously the most analogous example to draw from here! She’s not the first columnist to try to turn Trump’s decorating style into something sinister. Last week, the Guardian’s technology reporter Julia Carrie Wong declared gold to be “a perfect emblem for Trump” because the “violence and displacement, suffering and grief that have accompanied the quest for gold” make its legacy “garish, useless, drenched in blood.” That’s a lot to read into a mantel and a few knick-knacks. CNN found an unnamed “former White House official” to describe Trump’s decor as “weirdly un-presidential” and “king-like.” New York Magazine called it “the Emperor’s New Oval Office.”

All hail King Donald...