Anne Applebaum: “To hold the country together, we still require functioning institutions. But we also need symbols: a flag, a national anthem, shared ceremonies that remind us of our founding ideas. Thanksgiving. The Fourth of July. Presidential inaugurations. The State of the Union address. Indeed, convention speeches are traditionally used to invoke unity and ‘abstract’ American values too.”
“Since Donald Trump and J. D. Vance took office last year, they have set out to destroy both the institutions and the symbols… Because they believe that only their clan represents America, that only people like them deserve to be considered ‘real’ Americans, and that the American government exists to serve them alone, they need to undermine anything that tells a more unifying story.”
“With that goal in mind, Trump has deliberately and methodically defaced the White House, a structure originally designed to evoke the classical virtues—simplicity, modesty, symmetry—that were widely admired at the time of America’s founding.”
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