The Trumplandia Tour!

It's weirder than you think in Washington, D.C....

I haven’t been in downtown Washington, D.C. since before Trump took office in 2017. I’ve been to Bethesda, Maryland, and I didn’t have the heart to drive in and see the usual stuff, most of which I have toured many times.

Although culturally and spiritually I am a native Minnesotan (mostly my fishing and an odd aversion to anything spicier than a baked potato), I did grow up in the DC area from 1968 until 1971, and then my parents lived in DC from when I was 18 until my mother died in 1987.

So when my dear friends Matt Wuerker and Eleni Houghton offered to take us on a “Trumplandia Tour,” I jumped at the chance.

From the outside, mostly through television, I had visualized massive North Korean-scale banners lionizing Dear Leader. They’re there, and obnoxious. We saw them hanging from the Department of Labor, the Department of What’s Left of Justice, and the Department of Health and Human Services, the playground of the dangerous lunatic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.. But these banners really didn’t stand out.

As we meandered the broad boulevards designed by Pierre L’Enfant, I was struck not by the banners, but of the traffic chaos, the tarps, the chainlink fencing, and, most stunningly, the cranes looming over the White House to build the idiotic, too-much East Wing (RIP) ballroom.

Of course, no visit to Washington would be complete without a futile assassination attempt, which ended with the death of the lunatic a few blocks from the Oval Office.

Driving by the White House, one would think that it was just another dilapidated property being rebranded with something far more tacky, useless, and tasteless than the original structure, which formerly served as the suite of offices for the mother of Donald Trump’s anchor baby, who is also a recipient of the largess of chain migration—another thing this crime family does while preaching the opposite to the American people.

I counted more three cranes, one massive, and then the silly, gigantic American flag one would see outside of a suburban auto mall.

A few blocks away, a crowd of people sang the Dominican Republic national anthem with a guy who had set up a little microphone, donation bucket, and sign that read “STOP HATING EACH OTHER BECAUSE YOU DISAGREE. Truth Conductor.com”. The guy was dressed as a railroad conductor, to add to the surreality.

“The Truth Conductor” seems to be a Trumpie who wants us all to go along with the scam. Sorry, man. You can’t proclaim truth if your guy is untruthful. Sing Kumbaya while the Grifter-in-Chief sets up a $1,776,000,000 coup rioter bailout fund?

Hard pass.

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Huh. OK. I only hate on people who don’t honor their constitutional oaths. The night before, I saw a group of 20 or so National Guard troops walking in an area that didn’t seem to need a show of force. I caught eye contact with one kid, a private, who looked to be about 19. He didn’t seem to want to be there, and was just punching the time clock until he could return to Tennessee or Oklahoma.

An Uber driver told me he was a major news anchor in Afghanistan. His name was Mohib, and he showed me some of his tapes. I absolutely believed him. We discussed the news culture in both countries, and he said many of tv news colleagues had been killed, jailed, or exiled.

I said, we don’t work that way. We use billionaires to buy the news outlets and destroy them instead. More sanitary, but equally effective. I tipped him $20.

As we continued the Trumplandia Tour, we went to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, to which, inexplicably, as a national memorial, the 8647th President of the United States had appended his name to the exterior. It’s just as jarring in person

Naturally, since Trump has gotten Stephen Colbert removed from the air, this is all bullshit to him.

I had never gone into the Kennedy Center before, and it is truly a lovely building. Maybe a 1961 design concept, but still magnificent.

This Robert Berks sculpture of JFK is astounding. I think the bust itself is about six feet tall—much larger than I thought.

The little museum about Jack Kennedy and the arts was especially effective, and I imagined how this is likely to be destroyed in the so-called “remodel” of the interior, which I expect will be a garish gutting. Perhaps a Trump merch store instead? More gold leaf and filigree, pls., and oh, build a UFC (or is it MMA?) fighting ring in there for July 4th, will ya? This fight club venue/structure is now being assembled on the South Lawn of the White House. Now that’s art.

My impression of Trump’s Washington was the same impression I have of some old lady in Queens with plastic covering her new sofa. Throw in full ashtrays, used Kleenex, and McDonald’s wrappers, and you get the aesthetic.

Except maybe the plastic on the sofa made some sort of sense.

What’s happening here is simply an attempt to plaster the Trump brand all over the city, plain and simple.

We then drove over to the area in front of Arlington National Cemetery where the obnoxious 275 foot arch will stand (although I am hoping it will be slowed down enough to stop it, assuming we have a maintain constitutional democracy.

I don’t have an over and under.

Anyone seeing what this behemoth monstrosity will obscure would object—It would block the view of the Custis-Lee Mansion, under which a few hundred feet down the hill is the gravesite of President John F. Kennedy and his brothers.

For the record, the United States government buried the Confederate dead to make sure people who thought a violent coup was a good idea. Now, Jefferson Davis would be compensated for his trouble overthrowing the federal government, led by Abraham Lincoln. You know, the guy who has a memorial further down the hill.

Maybe Trump can slap his ugly name on that, too. Looks like there’s some room. What with that new cobalt blue pool liner, ten times over budget, it should match just fine. Chump change, and you’re the chump.

The circle where this mess is being planned “to commemorate the 250th birthday of the United States”, is merely another desecration that only in the eyes of a narcissistic maniac/developer would be appealing.

Tiny orange flags mark the footprint of this goofball project nearly the height of a football field.

As I looked at the rows of thousands of white grave markers under which America’s fallen heroes rest, I cannot help but wonder if they would approve of this cultural graffiti at their doorstep.

Heading back to the hotel, we saw more plastic, more signs, more construction of crap—the detritus of construction with only one purpose: not to perpetuate the name and the goodness of the American people, but to aggrandize a man baby.

This construction isn’t the worst thing that Trump is doing.

The soiling of the institution, the norms, and the common purpose of the American people is far more dangerous, but that can be rebuilt (maybe) under the presidency and leadership of someone with decent and benevolent intent.

(I will write about the visit to Arlington shortly in a separate essay).

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Hey, YBs! : A fascinating day here. Tuesday is the day of the Herblock Prize event, and I am working on my speech, looking at the condition of my socks, and hoping I don’t get a cold. We drove by the Library of Congress, where the event is to be held, and I am still a little awestruck by the whole thing. More later today. Have a great afternoon.—J.