Trump’s gone Caesar: 'Is he focused on you or is he focusing on himself?'

During the second administration of President Donald Trump, he’s made it abundantly clear that elaborate “vanity projects” are among his key priorities. From a 250-foot arch that will loom over Arlington National Cemetery, to applying his face to passports and coins, to his hotly debated ballroom, “he’s really interested in the bragging rights of the moment,” says Michael Scherer of the Atlantic.

Speaking with Slate, Scherer explored the matter of Trump’s flurry of construction and naming projects, and why they suggest that his true desire is to be remembered as an American Caesar.

As Scherer explained, Trump’s initial motivation for his most discussed project — the White House ballroom — was fairly mundane. “The original idea was that the president was unhappy with the fact that if you have state dinners, still, at the White House, very often they’ll put tents up on the lawn.” He wanted more space for entertaining, plain and simple. But as his concerns over security increased in the wake of now two assassination attempts, Trump began to like “the idea of not having to leave the White House campus, which is about as secure a place as can be.”

As public discussion raged around the ballroom and Trump’s other projects, however, polling began to show that these were starkly unpopular undertakings.

“What is clear is that the American people don’t really like it,” said Scherer. “It’s something that’s not a priority for them.” While Americans are outraged over gas prices and the war with Iran, Trump has remained focused on his ballroom and other projects. “It’s raising the question: Is he focused on you or is he focusing on himself? And I think we will see that argument develop going forward.”

As Scherer noted, Trump is pushing these projects in parallel to other actions “that are not politically rational. The Iran war was opposed by about two-thirds of the country… There’s Venezuela, Cuba, and Greenland. The ambitions of this president are pretty dramatic. And none of that is entirely politically rational.”

Scherer argued that Trump’s failure to address voter concerns means he is likely to lose the House in the midterms, and possibly even the Senate. “He does care,” insomuch as a majority Democratic Congress would inhibit his goals, “but it is not his priority.”

Instead, “his view is that he has the opportunity to do great things, to put himself at the level of the other greatest presidents or possibly the greatest people in world history. In recent weeks, he’s been talking to other people about Napoleon and Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, comparing himself to the most consequential Western leaders in history.”

Try as he might, says Scherer, Trump is less likely to be remembered for his ballroom than he is for the global disruptions he’s caused.

“He’s upsetting the post–World War II global order,” noted Scherer. “He’s changing the relationship between federal law enforcement and the American people. He’s basically undone the post-Watergate ethics rules. These are big changes.”

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