A Modest Proposal: Restore the People’s House

A plan to rid our democracy of gold leaf, false idols, and one man’s waste

It is a truth self-evident that a man who worships himself will eventually demand a temple.
And so he built one: a ballroom of glass and gold, more suited to a casino than to the seat of a republic.

The so-called renovation of the White House was not an act of service but a performance of ego. It stands as proof that when democracy grows weak, a vain man will always try to crown himself.

The next President should pledge to dismantle this monument to vanity, brick by tacky brick, and return the White House to what it ought to be, a home for a servant of the people.

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The Gaudy Auction

The taxpayers have already paid enough for his strongman’s fantasy. It’s time to get creative about covering the cost of restoring the East Wing.

Auction the right to swing the first sledgehammer at this Mar-a-Lago knockoff. Even if a fraction of the eight million Americans who marched against tyranny during No Kings bought a lottery ticket for the chance to bulldoze the monstrosity, we’d be well on our way to funding the restoration.

And the same Trump devotees who lined up for gold sneakers, limited-edition watches, and his endless stream of merchandise will stretch their budgets to bid on the debris. Every garish chandelier, every slab of fake marble, every mirror framed in fool’s gold will be to them a holy relic. Let them cradle their gilded bricks at night as tokens of devotion, while we direct their money to repair what their obsession once helped deface.

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Reign of Filth

On October 18, more than eight million Americans filled the streets to declare No Kings in the largest protest in our nation’s history. His response was not humility or reflection. It was contempt.

He released a video of himself flying above the crowds in a jet labeled King Trump, dumping brown sludge on the people below. It was meant to mock, but instead revealed the truth. He saw himself as a ruler above the people and treated the nation as something to soil. His legacy is not strength or greatness, only waste.
He provided the most apt metaphor for a man who loves power and despises the people of country. He has soiled this nation long before the AI video made its rounds, and only a thorough restoration of public purpose can wash away the stain, the corruption, and the legacy of self-serving power.

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Turn Rubble into a Lesson

Let the sale of his ballroom debris fund more than structural repair to the White House. Let it pay for civics education and history programs that teach the difference between power and service.

Send fragments of the debris to the corporate boards that financed his rise and the construction of this monstrosity. Let them display the ruins in their lobbies as evidence of what greed purchases and what history remembers.

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A House, Not a Throne

When the last gold-plated molding is gone, the White House can again stand as it was meant to: simple, public, and accountable.

The presidency is not ownership. It is a lease, renewed by the people and revoked when the occupant mistakes himself for the landlord.

If his followers wish to worship rubble, let them.
The rest of us will rebuild what matters, a republic that remembers who it belongs to.