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Who is running the US now? Jill Biden? Kamala Harris? President-in-charge Joe Biden? Or is it actually president-elect Donald Trump? Many signs point to the latter, especially the undeniable reality that the center of American political power has shifted about 1,000 miles to the south: from the grand neoclassical designs of the White House and the Capitol to the gilded- age-meets-Louis. -XIV shrine at Mar-a-Lago.
When Marjorie Merriweather Post — the breakfast cereal heiress who commissioned the Florida resort a century ago — left Mar-a-Lago to the federal government upon her death in 1973, the then administration decided that it is not worth the trouble or expense. The land was given back to the Post Foundation, which sold it to Trump in 1985. He made it a private members’ club in 1994. But the Post’s idea that it should be a “Winter White House” eventually became a reality during the 45th president’s First term in office. And despite the fact that he is not yet 47, the description now seems more appropriate than ever.
In recent weeks, a constant stream of billionaires, politicians and other forms of power brokers and sycophants have passed through the Palm Beach palace. Elon Musk seems to decamp there semi-permanently. Techno-romantic venture capitalist Marc Andreessen says he – how altruistic – spends half his time at the club to “help”. Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage and treasurer Nick Candy were pictured there, grinning with Musk.
And why not them? I’ve been inside Mar-a-Lago a few times and, contrary to popular belief, it’s usually very tasty. Trump was praised by members and local residents for preserving the original features. One finds that it is not Ketchup dripping down the walls. The only signs that you are on his property – rather than any other glitzy private club – are the “TRUMP” WI-FI network; the TRUMP coat of arms (changed from INTEGRITAS when he took over) placed on everything from napkins to doormats; framed magazines cover the walls of the entrance hall; and, yes, that quite a flattering picture at the bar.
Trump understands innately what other politicians struggle to get their heads around, including the power of how things look. And a beautiful private member’s club in a clean, sunny, palm-filled patch of land is a tempting invitation – even to the very rich (and even if the menu and music selection hasn’t changed within for about two decades, as members told me).
He understood that having a nice backdrop for announcements and interviews made him appear president when he was not in power. In fact, you only have to look at the towering Trump Tower in Manhattan, with its 34-inch tall copper capital letter above the entrance, to see how powerfully the former real estate developer wielded the architecture. as propaganda.
This thought occurred to me while watching a screening of stardust, a pleasant one new documentary about the postmodernist architectural power-couple Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown (I moderated a discussion at the Barbican with the directors, one of whom is the son of Venturi and Scott Brown). “It’s all propaganda,” says Scott Brown in the film, wryly comparing ancient Greek temples to Las Vegas billboards. “Would you rather sell religion or soap? I’m going to buy soap.”
The question of what exactly the American right has been trying to sell in its crusade against modern architecture over the last few years is fascinating. Last year, former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson went on a Roger Scruton-esque lamenting about how “postmodern” architecture is “designed to degrade and . . . destroy your spirit.”
And in 2020 Trump himself, a man who made his fortune in tower blocks, signed an executive order mandated that all new federal buildings must be “beautiful”. The order (later rescinded by Biden) also criticized the “discordant mixture of classical and modernist designs” seen in many federal buildings — an odd complaint, perhaps, from someone with Versailles-style apartment in the penthouse of a skyscraper, but then Trump don’t worry too much about consistency.
It comes down to selling the idea that traditional conservative values are the only thing that can save America, and nostalgia for a country that no longer exists. I have sympathy for the idea that buildings should be beautiful, although I do not believe that Trump’s promised “golden age of America” will happen. With his painted Winter White House, however, he pretended the influence of the dealers and greedy oligarchs around him could do it. For them, in fact, it is.
jemima.kelly@ft.com