How many times do we have to be reminded that Donald Trump is a failure? From the doomed businesses to unfulfilled campaign promises, next to nothing ever turns out the way Trump bloviatingly describes it.
That is especially true when he prefaces a grand plan as “something the likes of which nobody has ever seen before.” It’s usually the case that nobody will see it at all because it doesn’t happen.
Take two of the architectural monstrosities Trump has promised to bring to pass with never-before-seen magnificence, only to find out the structures are built on swamps, hemorrhaging billions of dollars, and collapsing under the weight of his overrated grandiosity.
One just went under. The other is still under construction, but it’s hanging by a very loose two-by-four.
Alligator Alcatraz, the immigration detention facility Trump anointed as the future of border enforcement, will be gone after only nine months in operation, sinking back into the muck of the Everglades from which it was improbably dredged. The day before its opening last summer, Trump said, “this was so professional, so well done.”
So much for that. The state of Florida has decided to pull the plug on the camp primarily due to exorbitant costs and stalled federal reimbursement. The original estimate for Alligator Alcatraz was $1.4 billion. Then the number started ballooning, as these things are wont to do when Trump is in charge. The closure comes amid escalating operating costs, now estimated to total nearly $1 billion alone.
Trump had called it a model for other states to emulate. He was, in a sense, right, just not in the way he intended.
Now consider the fluctuating status of his much-vaunted White House ballroom, which he’s hailed with scores of superlatives too numerous to list.
Trump unveiled it with bellicose bullcrap, then proceeded to bulldoze the East Wing in a metaphorical millisecond.
It was indicative of how Trump rushes past the normal layers of review and due diligence; that boring, unglamorous red tape required when one wants to demolish a federal landmark.
But the choreography is now out of sync. That venue, the likes of which the world has never seen, is starting to drown in lawsuits, cost overruns, architectural criticism, and even protests from some Republican members of Congress.
(One GOP senator has called the project “just too politically toxic” to support. And this week, a White House official told Punchbowl News that, “There is no way in hell that this will get 218 votes on the floor.” The resistance is tied not just to the proposed White House ballroom itself, but to the larger $1 billion-plus package of security upgrades, construction, and infrastructure changes surrounding the project, funding that would require congressional approval even if preliminary planning and design work are already underway.)
The New York Times has reported that the design “has barely been scrutinized,” with architects warning its hurried timeline represents “an abrupt departure from how new monuments, museums and even modest renovations have been designed and refined in the capital for decades.”
Ninety-eight percent of the more than 32,000 public commenters opposed it. Trump has already fired the first architect, James McCrery II, because his small firm missed deadlines and he clashed with Trump over the proposal’s scale.
In other words, like everything else he does, Trump is winging it and, in doing so, has permanently defaced perhaps the nation’s most prestigious landmark. On Friday, he said the scheduled opening of the ballroom will be in September 2028.
Of course, if you believe that, you also believed that Alligator Alcatraz was the future of detention facilities.
Trump has repeatedly and explicitly promised the ballroom would be privately funded. It would not cost taxpayers a dime, he said. It would be a gift to the American people.
But then, Trump has never given a gift in his life that somebody else hasn’t paid for. In this case, the American people, apparently, are paying for his gift to us.
So what’s likely to happen when that happens? When he’s confronted with ridicule and roadblocks, Trump predictably moves on to the next silly scheme. If the ballroom sinks, he’ll lash out at Democrats in Congress, blame liberal judges, “transgenderism,” and windmills.
And no one would be surprised if he ended up putting a McDonald’s there instead since he “eats it every single day.”
Then, on January 20, 2029, Trump will hand over a dilapidated clapboard and a giant hole on the White House grounds to the next president.
As always, someone else will be forced to clean up his mess.
