TRUMP BUILDS HIS CULT COMPOUND

According to Axios, Trump is trying to make D.C. his Utopia.

President Trump is molding D.C. into his own personal Epcot — a political theme park where troops keep the peace, the White House glitters like Mar-a-Lago and museums answer to MAGA.

... Trump's pressure campaign against D.C. leadership culminated this month in the declaration of a crime emergency and the deployment of over 2,000 National Guard troops, some of which are now carrying firearms.

Up next: Trump plans to ask Congress for $2 billion to "beautify" D.C. — eyeing a massive facelift for the city's parks, fountains, streetlights, roads and more.

Trump says he's reducing crime in D.C. already, but the result of his crackdown so far is a city where people go out less than they used to.

Jim, this is amazing. I was a 26-year resident of DC. Never felt scared mid-day in these places and really not even at night. They would ordinarily be packed on a beautiful day like this. Trump's deployment as an anti-crime measure is batshit crazy.

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— Dean Baker (@deanbaker13.bsky.social) August 24, 2025 at 7:27 PM

Compare that to the crowds in the alleged urban hellhole Trump intends to target soon, probably after the likely inauguration of Zohran Mamdani in January. Here's what New York City looked like yesterday at the first stop of the scavenger hunt Mamdani staged as a campaign event:

I think there are more people here for Zohran's scavenger hunt than voted for Cuomo

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— Miser (@misernyc.bsky.social) August 24, 2025 at 2:19 PM

I wasn't there, but I went to Riverside Park in Manhattan, and it was full of walkers, runners, bicyclists, cafe eaters and drinkers ... No one was afraid. But I kept thinking, A year from now, there'll be tanks here.

We know that restaurant reservations are down 31% in D.C. We know that Gestapo tactics at the border are leading to an $8.5 billion reduction in spending by international tourists.

Are these unintended consequences of jackbooted Trumpism? Or is this what Trump wanted?

For all his talk about making America great again and cleaning up cities, there's been little or no effort by the White House to demonstrate to the world that things are better -- to generate imagery of spiffy tourist attractions and safe streets, in order to send the message that Trump's efforts are working, in D.C., Los Angeles, or anywhere else. Instead, the visuals in the regime's messaging have been all about the crackdown itself. It's understandably making people afraid -- and it's as if Trump likes it that way.

Trump seems like a cult leader or domestic abuser who wants to drive outsiders away. It appears that he's trying to create a hermetically sealed realm where he can dominate and terrorize everyone, while people from the outside world keep their distance. He clearly doesn't want the troops in the streets to succeed in their mission and go home -- he likes having them there, as a display of his menace and power. He's building a North Korea or a Jonestown, or household where the neighborhood kids are afraid to retrieve an errant ball and the adults wonder why no one ever sees the wife and children leaving the house.

He's redesigning the White House and promising to redesign D.C.'s parks.

Even the White House itself is being remade: Trump's gold-drenched renovations and plans for a $200 million ballroom mark the biggest changes to 1600 Penn in generations.

... "I know more about grass than any human being anywhere in the world," Trump told reporters Thursday. "We're going to be re-grassing all your parks, all brand-new sprinkler systems."

But that's so they'll look the way he wants them to look, not the way anyone else wants them to look. It's all for him to gaze upon. (Who wants the grass in a city park to look like a golf course? Grass in city parks is meant for picnics and games of Frisbee. It's not meant to be soulless and pristine.)

Trump's mad scheme is to construct a world where nothing non-Trump exists. Sadly, while he tries to construct it, we have to live here.