The Media Have A New Conspiracy Theory About Trump’s Interior Decorating
By: Elle Purnell
April 24, 2025
No, Trump’s Oval Office decor-maxxing is not a dog-whistle for monarchy. It’s actually on-brand, not just for Trump, but for America.
Trump critics often engage in what Federalist contributor Inez Stepman calls the “Hitler also ate breakfast” fallacy: pointing out some tertiary or non-evil habit of Adolf Hitler’s like driving in a car or having an affinity for tariffs, and drawing a comparison to Trump, as if any mundane activity in which Hitler ever engaged is necessarily and permanently fascist-coded. In a 1,700-word thinkpiece published Wednesday, Washington Post opinion columnist Carolina Miranda used that blueprint to draw parallels between President Donald Trump and a new historical villain — the famously absolutist King Louis XIV of France — based on similarities in their interior decorating taste.
If you look at the maximalist gold accents with which Trump has appointed the Oval Office, “the sparkle conveys something more insidious about how Trump views himself,” Miranda writes. “Behold the new Sun King, a wannabe emperor who views his powers as absolute.”
Sure, Jan. Trump’s affinity for flashy, theatrical decor is only breaking news if you’ve been living under a rock since the last century. And he’s hardly the first successful American businessman to develop a taste for extravagant digs.
https://twitter.com/MichaelDeLauzon/status/1505586492013350913Miranda argues that Trump’s penchant for Rococo design reflects “an aesthetic that connotes absolute rule” and says “Trump’s gilded gewgaws” are “intimately connected” with “our growing authoritarian state.” Personally, I thought it was pretty authoritarian for the Biden administration to censor Americans’ speech online, round up pro-lifers in armed raids, and brand parents with the language of “domestic terrorism” for raising concerns at school board meetings. But Biden’s taste is more New England elitist than Palm Beach, so I guess that makes it OK?
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https://thefederalist.com/2025/04/24/the-media-have-a-new-conspiracy-theory-about-trumps-interior-decorating/
