Pro tip: You know that things have gotten bad when the master of horror is horrified. I daresay that Stephen King didn’t know when he was writing The Dead Zone that he was in fact predicting a chapter of America’s future. I know it didn’t connect with me until 2016 that if there was one movie out there (besides Idiocracy, of course) that predicted our political quandary of the moment, it was The Dead Zone. We went from Dead Zone to Twilight Zone in a heartbeat and now here’s the latest in the Trump Zone (or Danger Zone. That’s the piece of music Trump stole for about six hours last week when he was digitally defecating on America) so take your pick. I expect King to write another book about this.
Holy shit! That motherfucker TORE DOWN THE WHITE HOUSE!
— Stephen King (@stephenking.bsky.social) 2025-10-23T19:33:02.323Z
Yep. And he proposes to replace the eradicated part with a looming monstrosity twice the size of the main mansion of the White House, which is about 45,000 square feet.
He should write one about an elitist young man who parties and buys his way into collge on his family's name. Then get a brain parasite which they think is cured but later when the man has power reimmerses to control the man into I don't know blaming Tylenol for austism?
When you get to the part where the elitist young man sells the entire GOP's soul to Satan, send me a DM. I want to help write that part.
— Ursula Faw (@ursulafaw.bsky.social) 2025-10-24T01:19:09.425Z
The physical destruction of the White House is a bit too much. If you were putting it in a work of ficion, it would be condemned as “too on the nose” a phrase which means that you have been too blunt in the point you’re trying to make, rather than coming up with an action that makes your statement metaphorically and well.
Trump is oblivious to metaphor. MAGA is not the crowd for nuance. They just want to know, with respect to everything and everyone: do we 1. kill it? 2. eat it? 3. fuck it? Some combo? There’s not a lot above and beyond the basics for this group or for their charismatic cult leader.
Let’s see what’s next. Meanwhile. would you care to know how much money Trump has managed to grift since back in office these few short months?
— George Conway 🇺🇸🚫👑🐸 (@gtconway.bsky.social) 2025-10-23T00:13:23.949Z
Frankly, I don’t know which is more horrifying, the money or the bulldozer. Read this from Dan Rather’s newsletter. Rather has a special attachment to the White House, having worked there for ten years back in the day. Rather is in his 90’s now. The sentence below horrifies me almost more than the bulldozing. Remember, this is the “Peoples’ House” according to John Quincy Adams. It doesn’t belong to Trump. He’s got a four-year housing lease there, not permission from anybody to remodel or rebuild.
The only reason we know the East Wing is being bulldozed is because Treasury Department employees, who work next door, defied a White House order by sharing photos taken from their offices of a national historic landmark being leveled.
Until very recently, the East Wing was a 12,000 square foot, two-story structure connected to the main building by an arcade. It housed function rooms, the offices of the First Lady, the White House visitors’ office, the guest entrance, and an underground secure shelter. It was built in 1942, during Franklin Roosevelt’s second term. Prior to that addition, the East Terrace, a small structure that served as a formal visitors’ entrance, was added in 1902, before that a greenhouse occupied the space.
On a personal note, among all of Trump’s outrageous acts, this one really hits home for this reporter. For the better part of 10 years, I worked in the CBS News workspace in the West Wing. So much of my own history and the country’s is entwined with the building.
Witnessing any part of its demolition is a gut punch. Trump crossed an invisible line by destroying something that wasn’t his to destroy. You could say that about so much of what he has done, but the visual of seeing a bulldozer taking down part of this national treasure was a painful reminder of how he and his administration works everyday at dismantling our democracy.
I wish I could say I was surprised by any of this, but remember, this is the guy who paved over Jackie Kennedy’s rose garden to make it look like the patio of his Palm Beach resort.
While Trump is razing an historic monument to make way for a gilded ballroom, he and his Republican toadies are not making good on the campaign promise to deal with the affordability crisis. Instead, they are enriching themselves and their friends at the expense of the American taxpayer.
A demented old man and his coterie of sociopaths is destroying our country’s legacy. Piece by piece, day by day.
So adding it up, plus his usual grifting over time, totals around the $7 billion mark – and he’s been in for how long?
He must be the most successful criminal in history.
He’s making all other despots, including Putin and those African ones, look like rank amateurs.
putin is rumored to be the richest man in the world, and that ain’t stock in his companies like musk, bezos et al. as for the destruction ruth ben ghiatt calls it personalizing which is a thing authoritarians do. and since he is in the process of personalizing the whit house that means he has no intention of leaving.
I agree that all of what you say is true, but it ain’t over til it’s over. This is far from over. Hopefully people with good sense will retake control of the US. We shall see.