Priorities: Trump regime to persist in disfiguring White House grounds with a garish ballroom, even amidst a government shutdown

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{ABC News 2 October} White House ballroom construction to continue through government shutdown

Essential programmes are cut, the most vulnerable suffer—yet many of those afflicted (the poor, often rural white ones) still cheer Trump as he inflates his ego and fleeces all in sight beneath the guise of making the former United States ‘great again’. The nation draws perilously near a breaking point. Those exhausted by Trumpism will not endure in their patience forever and at some point there is going to be a revolt; and he and his millions of acolytes ought not delight so blithely in that prospect. They are toying with fire, and in time it shall be they who are consumed. Their minds and souls are already forfeit, and how fortunate for their manipulators that is so. —Arthur Newhook, 2 October 2025.

{alternate text for above image} A night-time photograph of the White House grounds circa 2009, featuring a large temporary ballroom tent illuminated from within, its chandeliers casting a warm golden glow. The translucent roof and side panels reveal a gathering of guests inside, dressed formally, with soft light spilling through the arched windows of the walkway that connects to the main structure. The Washington Monument rises in the distance, starkly lit against a moody sky, anchoring the scene in its broader national context. Trees frame the edges of the composition, their dark silhouettes enhancing the contrast between the festivity of the interior and the sombre, clouded night beyond. The image captures a juxtaposition of grandeur and impermanence, the tented structure providing a fleeting stage for ceremony and spectacle upon historic ground.

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