IS MALIGNANT NARCISSIST TRUMP WRECKING THE EAST WING BECAUSE HE THINKS HE'S CLOSE TO DEATH?

I'm sure you know about this:

Demolition crews on Monday began tearing down part of the White House to build President Donald Trump’s long-desired ballroom despite his pledge that construction of the $250 million addition wouldn’t “interfere” with the existing building.

Construction teams were demolishing a portion of the East Wing, with a backhoe ripping through the structure....

As Shawn McCreesh notes in The New York Times, arrogant contempt for cherished edifices is is a family tradition for Trump:

In 1980, he ka-blammed the old Bonwit Teller building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan so that he could raise up Trump Tower. He promised to preserve the treasured limestone friezes atop the old building but then went and jackhammered them into oblivion....

He went to the “21” Club with the Vanity Fair journalist Marie Brenner and asked her, “What do you think? Do you think blowing up the sculptures has hurt me?”

She answered yes.

“Who cares?” he replied. “Let’s say that I had given that junk to the Met. They would have just put them in their basement. I’ll never have the goodwill of the Establishment ...”

In 1966, his father, Fred Trump, tore down a 19th-century amusement park in Coney Island. Trump père threw a party at the demo site, complete with bikini-clad, hard-hat-wearing models. He handed out bricks for people to chuck at the glass front of the park’s pavilion, a beloved local attraction known as “Funny Face.”

Another family tradition is declaring that everyone's preferences align with those of the alpha Trump. Donald tells us that he's just doing what at least 27 previous presidents wanted done:

He ... posted on his Truth Social platform that the “much-needed project” had begun.

“For more than 150 years, every President has dreamt about having a Ballroom at the White House to accommodate people for grand parties, State Visits, etc.,” the president wrote.

Fred Trump also had a psychological need to have everyone share his taste, as Donald's first wife, Ivana, told us before her death:

"Fred Trump was [a] really brutal father," she told ABC News. "We went to Tavern on the Green for the brunch one Sunday and [Trump’s] father ordered a steak. So all the, you know, the sisters and brothers, they ordered a steak."

However, Ivana really wanted a filet of sole, so she ordered it, as one usually does when they decide what meal they want at a restaurant. But "Fred looked up at the waitress and, 'No, she's going to have a steak,'" Ivana explained. But she wasn't having it.

"I look up at the waiter, I said, 'No, Ivana is going to have a filet of sole,' — because if I would let him just [roll] right over me, it would be all my life and I would not allow it."

Trump has obviously decided to demolish the East Wing -- and tear up the Rose Garden, and drown the West Wing in gilded gewgaws -- because he thinks the presidency gives him limitless power and because he assumes everyone shares his opinions and tastes (or believes he can browbeat everyone into sharing his opinions and tastes).

But I think another thought is weighing on Trump: the possibility that he could die soon.

Trump's hand bruises and recent absences from the public eye suggest that he has medical problems that could kill him if they're not effectively managed. On the other hand, he's probably getting excellent care and could live for many more years.

But he seems concerned. He's been talking a lot lately about whether he'll get to heaven.

Even a power-mad narcissist knows he can't keep the world from turning after he dies. Trump knows that people will continue to change the world after he's gone.

But I think he can't bear the thought that anything under his control now will continue to bear the marks of people who preceded Trump after he's dead. Trump can't control the future, but I think he wants to obliterate the past.

I think he wants the White House to be his White House, just as he wants the country to be run by his laws (which are really Russell Vought and Stephen Miller's edicts issued in his name). If he ever gets the ballroom built, he'll want it to be called the Donald J. Trump Grand Ballroom (which is the official name of the largest ballroom at Mar-a-Lago). He might even want the White House itself to be renamed in his honor. (I guarantee you that some Republican will propose naming it the Trump House, or the Donald J. Trump White House, after he dies.)

Trump is a psychologically unhealthy man who's thinking about his legacy. That might explain the backhoe.