I don’t think the majority of voting Americans have problems with any of those acts though. Think Joe you pass in Walmart cares about what happens to the White House ballroom?
At this point it's just brainwashing. Some people's principals are clearly less about their own conviction and treating all this like a sports team. Whoever team "wins", even if the stadium burns down around them.
Conflict of interest by attempting to curry favor for his vanity project by making donations? That's a fair criticism.
Remember that Mexico allegedly would pay for the wall.
So either Trump is doing this officially as a President, but with funding that is illegal/unconstitutional...
... Or the funding is legal, but Trump is doing it as a private citizen, which is a federal crime. [0]
[0] https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...
Does Trump paying himself $230 million in taxpayer dollars in compensation for his various criminal prosecutions fit under "waste, fraud, and abuse"?
Learn more at TrumpIsKing.gov”
Another (more charitable?) explanation is they just never make the connection:
> It’s easy to find authoritarians endorsing inconsistent ideas. Just present slogans and appeals to homey values, and then present slogans and bromides that invoke opposite values. The yea-saying authoritarian follower is likely to agree with all of them. Thus I asked both students and their parents to respond to, “When it comes to love, men and women with opposite points of view are attracted to each other.” Soon afterwards, in the same booklet, I pitched “Birds of a feather flock together when it comes to love.” High [Right-Wing Authoritarian scorers] typically agreed with both statements, even though they responded to the two items within a minute of each other.
-- https://theauthoritarians.org/ (2006 ebook)
Joe in Walmart thinks what Facebook memes and Fox News tell him to think. The same subversive forces that support the administration's lawlessness control the media diet of a plurality of Americans.
If you want Americans to care about wants going on, you have to inform them about it first.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/devastating-poll-reveals...
The life expectancy tables are kinda against it though
Life-expectancy tables for multimillionaires and national politicians are probably significantly different.
but that's probably not what he meant.
[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5519134-lindsey-graham-d...
At one point I would have agreed, but then in 2017, McCain made his "We will regret what we are about to do" speech before the R's removed the filibuster requirement for the Gorsuch confirmation. And as an Arizona voter, I switched my registration from Independent to Democrat.
> “I fear that someday we will regret what we are about to do. In fact, I am confident we will,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. “It is imperative we have a functioning Senate where the rights of the minority are protected regardless of which party is in power at the time.” > > Nonetheless, McCain voted with McConnell on the rules change, saying he felt he had no choice.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/senate-gop-invokes-nucle...
People are complaining because Trump is doing it. Nobody would care - hell, the media would probably excitedly talking about the plans - if it were anyone else.
Bull! People would complain for any President who:
1. Lied to everyone promising it "wouldn't interfere with the current building." [0]
2. Broke federal laws which have always governed changes to these public properties and landmarks.
3. Unconstitutionally spent funds Congress did not approve-of, which applies regardless of whether those funds came in as taxes or as donations.
Feel free to detail what other President did the same actions and nobody cared. Trump's bad reputation comes from his bad actions like these, not the other way around.
You can get a quarter of the country to say yes or not care for any given question no matter how obviously dangerous or stupid. But having a 25% approval rating would be very, very bad.
https://upnorthnewswi.com/2025/10/20/wisconsin-soybean-farme...
What do they care about? Price of groceries? Health care maybe?
I assure you, they are not.
> You think they're too dumb to understand the difference between "tearing down" and "renovating"?
Are you? You think the East Wing is being "renovated"?
Renovation is renewal, repair, restoring function and safety.
What's happening instead? Knocking the safe and functional East Wing flat (walls, roof, both floors, 30+ internal rooms) and replacing it with a completely new structure with new foundations and a different purpose... and with a new footprint larger than the entire White House of 2024!
Nowhere even remotely close to the same thing. Might as well brag that you "repaired" your sedan by selling it and buying a new truck.
They aren't demolishing the entire White House...
Bingo.
Renovation is as your interlocutor says, a restoration. Remodeling is what is happening there, tearing apart something and putting something new in its place. It's a more drastic and expensive work.
Most people understand that any sort of "remodeling" or "renovation" often requires some demolition first.
Incessant semantic pedantry? You mean like stridently defending that Trump is not destroying the White House, in response to a comment that didn’t claim that Trump was destroying the White House?