A new controversy has emerged surrounding the Trump administration's planned White House ballroom renovation, which is being funded entirely through private donations. Media critics are treating this private-funded project as yet another scandal, despite its potential public benefits. Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of NewsBusters.org, argues that this represents the "silliest Trump scandal imaginable" and questions whether treating everything as a scandal diminishes the meaning of actual scandals.
Washington Post art critic Philip Kennicott published a scathing critique on October 24, titled "Why the demolition of the East Wing is so shocking: The speed of destruction, and the projection of power, are part of the strongman playbook." Kennicott drew parallels between Trump's architectural plans and fascist imagery, citing Columbia University professor Barry Bergdoll's speech at the National Building Museum. Bergdoll noted that "the public display of the architectural model has a darker history in fascist and totalitarian politics."
Kennicott insisted that such projects should undergo an elaborate review process that balances opposing worldviews, forges compromise, and incorporates diverse perspectives. However, critics point out that most journalists at the Post would reject applying this same standard of balance to their own Trump coverage. The critic's lack of consistency becomes apparent when examining his previous work on political imagery.
Last year, Kennicott harshly criticized the Associated Press photograph showing Trump raising a defiant fist after being shot in the ear. He wrote that the image "will encourage some of the darkest forces in American civic life" and predicted that "more cycles of violence are almost inevitable." This reaction contrasted sharply with his praise for the Obama presidential portraits in 2017, where he described the controversial images as "great" partly because "that couple is awesome."
The art critic's political bias extends beyond presidential imagery to American symbols themselves. On July 3, 2021, Kennicott published an article titled "Maybe it's time to admit that the Statue of Liberty has never quite measured up." He described the statue as "ambiguous and ambivalent," claiming it represents "hypocrisy or unfulfilled promises" due to what he characterized as "four years of strident and often violent anti-immigrant sentiment" during Trump's presidency.
On October 26, Kennicott returned with another lengthy attack piece, accusing Trump of attempting to "consolidate power over cultural infrastructure" through a "campaign against taxpayer-funded museums." He alleged that Trump seeks to "capture or coerce them into new narratives of patriotism and American exceptionalism." In this piece, he championed painter Amy Sherald, who created Michelle Obama's official portrait, after she pulled her work from the National Portrait Gallery over her painting "Trans Forming Liberty," which depicted the Statue of Liberty as a drag queen.
The critic's arguments reveal internal contradictions when he condemns Trump supporters for ginning up "anger and online mobs," calling such behavior unhealthy. However, he simultaneously praises leftist activists who vandalize art to protest oil companies, arguing that "museums, at their best, are institutions that respond to public needs and concerns." This double standard highlights the selective application of his principles based on political alignment.
Kennicott concluded his recent critiques by warning against "the usual horsemen of the authoritarian apocalypse: suspicion, cynicism and apathy." Critics argue that what truly concerns the left is not authoritarianism, but rather any challenge to their ideological control over cultural institutions. They suggest that the real issue is resistance to what they see as the left's "overweening cultural dominance" and efforts to maintain their stranglehold on cultural narratives through what amounts to their own form of culture war.
