Waving his flag all over the place: Trump adds 'Arc de Trump' to presidential renovations

[groundloop]

Source: The Guardian

More than two centuries have passed since France celebrated the emperor Napoleon’s birthday by laying the foundation stone of the Arc de Triomphe. Now Donald Trump has imperial ambitions of his own.

On Wednesday, the US president unveiled plans for a grand arch in Washington that has already been dubbed the “Arc de Trump”.

The project, likely to be seen by critics as evidence of monumental hubris, is the latest attempt by property developer-turned-politician Trump to transform the US capital for good.

He told wealthy guests about the idea during a glitzy dinner in the White House East Room. The president pointed to a map displaying its proposed location as a gateway to Washington from northern Virginia.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/16/donald-trump-washington-arch

[Captain Zero]

1. DC is going to end up looking like

Disney World, Vegas, and an Indiana Trailer Park fucked and had a kid.

[FirefighterJo]

2. Like hitlers berlin

Check Google
Deutschland Uber alles

[Javaman]

4. trumpland uber alles nt

[sop]

3. Trump will create a new cabinet-level position: Secretary of Totalitarian Architecture

Every dictator needs his own Albert Speer to design imposing, monumental structures to commemorate their 1000-year rule.

[lapfog_1]

5. sooo much demolition work ahead

step 1. Fire anyone hired by trump

step 2. rescind all Trump EO

step 3. Issue contracts to demolish the ball room, restore the rose garden, any monuments to Trump

step 0. Somehow either expand the SCOTUS or remove 6 Justices

step -1. Unfuck the elections.

[calimary]

29. I'd probably start with Step 3.

And proceed from there.

My husband just came up with a good response to the donald: “I’m not happy til YOU’RE not happy.”

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Shouldn't that be "waving his banner all over the place"?

I'd have expected The Guardian to know Queen lyrics better.

[Farmer-Rick]

30. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing

But honestly all the monuments he's building to himself, it's more likely a very tiny body part he's waving around.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. Maybe a small stone mushroom would be appropriate? (nt)

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. The picture at The Guardian makes it look like Spinal Tap's Stonehenge

Here's hoping there's a similar fuck-up in units.

[electric_blue68]

34. Thst was one of the funniest scenes ever!

[Ray Bruns]

8. This is how he bankrupted his casinos. While they were going under, Trump was looking over carpet swatches.

[Eugene]

9. I noted he wants a palace in a previous thread. This confirms his palace will be a tacky imitation of Versailles.

lots of gold but no class

[doc03]

10. The Trump vision of his 'Arc de Trump'

?si=jeY_R5An5v38YfsP

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

11. But, when his vision is implemented, ...

... one arch for each lane of traffic.

[Lithos]

12. Post zenith glitter

Someone should tell Trump that Empires erect such things in memory of past glories as they start their descent into historical oblivion. Leaders of such eras are typically looked down upon as failures.

L-

[Justice matters.]

27. Someone should teach him about the Trial and execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_and_execution_of_Nicolae_and_Elena_Ceau%C8%99escu

Oh, and tell his trophy wife too...

[popsdenver]

40. Or Mussolini and his wife

hanging upside down from their heels, with lots of bullet holes................

[Texin]

13. Christ on a crutch. He's going to make D.C. look like a Gilded Age bordello.

[popsdenver]

41. When he brought in

all the Nat Guard, Ice, Military, FBI, ATF to permanently patrol the streets of Washington D.C. I figured he was tired of Mar-a-Gago, and was moving his operations up there to D.C. Providing constant, massive military protection for his new empire that he would be locating in DC.........Maybe I was right.........

He saw how easily his un-armed crowd of 5,0000 of his MAGAots swarmed and trashed the U.S. Capitol and he didn't want a repeat invasion by the Dems, of the White House. (Or should we start calling it "THE GOLD HOUSE"?????)

In the back of his mind, he is probably trying to figure out how to build a humongous vault, underground, beneath his monstrous ball room addition, to relocate Fort Knox there.......

Never should anyone EVER say again: HE CAN'T or WON'T DO THAT............

[slightlv]

14. Only if it's his own money, solely and completely...

and when he leaves DC, he takes it with him to whatever country he seeks shelter from!

[enigmania]

15. The madness of King Orange.

[IcyPeas]

16. Graffiti artists: get your cans ready.

[radical noodle]

17. I just find this embarrassing

As well as a waste of money that could be used for something good.

[popsdenver]

42. It doesn't bother him a single bit

IT'S NOT HIS MONEY, IT'S TAXPAYERS MONEY.........And less and less Uber Rich Taxpayer's money and less and less Corporate Tax payer money with every year that passes............

[hay rick]

18. His ego needs to take another victory lap.

[Linda ladeewolf]

19. I so hope

That the next democratic president has the balls to tear out all dumps renovations and restore it all to its original appearance. I hope to live to see it, I will so enjoy the look on trumps face when it all comes crashing down. Hope trump has a stroke.

[Orrex]

20. Why doesn't he just fucking die already?

[ificandream]

21. His next target will be Mount Rushmore.

One of his lackeys already introduced a bill in Congress. (Link here.) No way he's not going to be for that.

[Montauk6]

22. Just let him put a huge golden neonTRUMP sign over the WH, who's gonna stop him? Besides...

It'll be all that deviously delicious watching the NEXT President tear it all down, a la Reagan yanking Carter's solar panels.

[MontanaMama]

23. I say that we should his foul arch

and then hang him from it. That is all.

[Bayard]

24. No. Just, NO!

This would be money that's supposed to go for Medicare and Social Security, not your glorification, asshole.

[Buddyzbuddy]

25. Wait a minute, his own golden arches?

[in2herbs]

26. There's renovations occurring inside the WH we don't know about. For example, at his recent dinner for the oldigarchs

f45 said he had remodeled the bath in the Lincoln bedroom and intended to do other rooms.

[aggiesal]

28. He doesn't ever expect to leave the WH. He honestly thinks he will be a King for life. n/t

[chouchou]

31. Oh Brother. He's so damn stupid that if somebody gave him 20 IQ points, he still...

....would think that dear lives in the woods and one of them is called "Bambi".

[Chellee]

32. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley

[Grins]

33. "...Mount Rushmore having been proven unsuitable..."

This is an entirely new category of clinical narcissism.

It will force entirely new chapters in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,“ that will take years.

[Grins]

35. From the link...

“The (orange clinical narcissist) pointed to a map displaying its proposed location as a gateway to Washington from northern Virginia.

Brace yourself…

“Every time somebody rides over that beautiful bridge to the Lincoln Memorial, they LITERALLY say, ‘something is supposed to be here’.”

I have lived in both downtown Washington, DC and northern Virginia going back to the NIXON years.

Trust me: NO ONE HAS EVER said that!!! “Literally” - no one!

“Figuratively” too!

(You know what else the Capitol region residents NEVER wanted - renaming Washington National Airport after Reagan. So what is it with Republicans needing to name/build monuments to themselves…?)

[Aussie105]

37. When too much is never enough . . .

Sad when someone spends their life trying to fill the holes in his personality and heart with material things.

But this is Trump, so sneering and declaring it insanely deplorable is just fine.

It's a sad footnote in American history though, that this incomplete human was allowed to get to where he is now, doing what he is doing now.

[BidenRocks]

38. Chump may privately fund construction,

but he doesn't have title to the land.

Why isn't this an issue?

Chump is a tenant who must restore the property when he leaves.

Who are the White House HOA?

[DET]

39. Oh Hell No

I used to drive over Memorial Bridge several times a week to get to George Washington University in Foggy Bottom in DC. Trump wants to build his vanity project in Memorial Circle, a traffic circle in Virginia that leads directly to the bridge. It’s actually a pretty good spot for a monument, but the last thing we need is a memorial to a dictator who is doing his best to destroy our country. It would be an affront to Virginians and to all Americans who believe in democracy. It would also cost a fortune; not a luxury we can afford when people are hungry and homeless.

[CTyankee]

44. I worked on Capitol Hill for several years and remember my carpool from home in No. Virginia

IIRC we had to have 4 in our car in order to qualify for the "carpool lane" so we would literally try to pick up a passenger waiting at a bus stop in order to "qualify" for that lane, if one of our carpool was out sick or on vacation. We'd pick up total strangers and it was kinda fun, IIRC.

Is this still the case?

[DET]

45. Yes, It Is

HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes still exist on the highways during defined hours, but you can now opt to pay for express lanes to avoid the HOV requirements. Payment depends on the highway and traffic conditions at the time. It’s been pretty controversial, especially since the charges can be really high (e.g., $35 one way during heavy congestion).

Personally, I find the whole thing extremely confusing. Fortunately, I’m retired and almost never need to go to DC or MD, and I never drive major highways around here anymore. If I need to go somewhere outside my self-defined perimeter, my husband drives or I can take Metro. I feel sorry for visitors having to navigate our roads.

[CTyankee]

46. the Metro had just opened when I left NoVA for good to move to New Haven, marry my second and forever husband and start

my new life. I had worked as an assistant to the Exec. Director of the ACLU in D.C. (then, his name was John H.F. Shattuck and he was a great guy). I did find Capitol Hill a fun place and I enjoyed covering some of the subcommittee hearings/sessions a lot. I got to know more than I needed to know about how Congress works (or doesn't) on the Hill.

I did meet the fabulous RBG way before she was a SCOTUS member. I can only recall how tiny she was. She was a member of a private law firm and did pro bono work for the ACLU. But since I worked for the ACLU hq in NYC as an assistant to then ED Aryeh Neier, it was a nice transition to the D.C. office.

[ReRe]

43. One needs no more proof

that the man is a genuine megalomaniac! The whole fucking Capital will have to be restored. And who gave him the right to tear up the Rose Garden and fuck up the entire White House & Grounds? I will stop here. I am seething!!!!