The Media Have A New Conspiracy Theory About Trump’s Decor

Trump critics often engage in what Federalist contributor Inez Stepman calls the “Hitler also ate breakfast” fallacy: pointing out some tertiary or non-evil habit of Adolf Hitler’s like driving in a car or having an affinity for tariffs, and drawing a comparison to Trump, as if any mundane activity in which Hitler ever engaged is necessarily and permanently fascist-coded. In a 1,700-word thinkpiece published Wednesday, Washington Post opinion columnist Carolina Miranda used that blueprint to draw parallels between President Donald Trump and a new historical villain — the famously absolutist King Louis XIV of France — based on similarities in their interior decorating taste.

If you look at the maximalist gold accents with which Trump has appointed the Oval Office, “the sparkle conveys something more insidious about how Trump views himself,” Miranda writes. “Behold the new Sun King, a wannabe emperor who views his powers as absolute.”

Sure, Jan. Trump’s affinity for flashy, theatrical decor is only breaking news if you’ve been living under a rock since the last century. And he’s hardly the first successful American businessman to develop a taste for extravagant digs.

Miranda argues that Trump’s penchant for Rococo design reflects “an aesthetic that connotes absolute rule” and says “Trump’s gilded gewgaws” are “intimately connected” with “our growing authoritarian state.” Personally, I thought it was pretty authoritarian for the Biden administration to censor Americans’ speech online, round up pro-lifers in armed raids, and brand parents with the language of “domestic terrorism” for raising concerns at school board meetings. But Biden’s taste is more New England elitist than Palm Beach, so I guess that makes it OK?

Miranda even compares Trump’s deportation of illegally present aliens and suspected gang members to Louis XIV throwing Frenchmen into the Bastille. Because the expulsion of foreign lawbreakers, not the Biden administration’s actual attempt to imprison its political opposition, is obviously the most analogous example to draw from here!

She’s not the first columnist to try to turn Trump’s decorating style into something sinister. Last week, the Guardian’s technology reporter Julia Carrie Wong declared gold to be “a perfect emblem for Trump” because the “violence and displacement, suffering and grief that have accompanied the quest for gold” make its legacy “garish, useless, drenched in blood.” That’s a lot to read into a mantel and a few knick-knacks.

CNN found an unnamed “former White House official” to describe Trump’s decor as “weirdly un-presidential” and “king-like.” New York Magazine called it “the Emperor’s New Oval Office.”

Washington Post critic Robin Givhan wrote last month that the maximalist decor “evokes insecurity and petulance” and fretted that “the Oval Office has begun to look like the king’s lair.” Of special objection to her was Trump’s decision to hang a framed copy of his mug shot, which she said “gives Trump the look of a malevolent king,” in an adjacent hallway.

See if you can spot any changes in tone since The New York Times covered Biden’s decor-maxxing this way in 2021:

In terms of sheer volume, he [Biden] has included more sculptures and paintings than other recent presidents, in part, experts say, because he is trying to signal his support for an array of causes: labor, science, the importance of compromise and more.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Dan Scavino posted a 360-degree video of the room so you can see for yourself the office decor that is supposedly a dog-whistle for monarchy:

Are some of the choices over the top? Sure. Are they better than Biden’s bust of radical Cesar Chavez or these horrible Obama-era velour couches with matching Ikea-meets-patio-pavers coffee table? Undoubtedly.

Varieties in personal taste aside, it’s exciting to see the Oval Office decked out with the likenesses of so many great Americans. Trump has returned the famous painting of George Washington by Charles Willson Peale that sat above the mantel from the Nixon to Reagan presidencies. Other portraits have been moved around a few times since January, but peruse recent Oval Office photos and you’ll spot Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, Martin van Buren, Franklin Roosevelt, Alexander Hamilton, James Polk, Andrew Jackson, a second portrait of Washington, and several others. Trump has also added the flags of each branch of the Armed Forces. It’s hard to deny that both moves are patriotic.

It’s also maximalist and gaudy, to be sure. But maximalist decor has a decidedly, though not exclusively, American heritage.

From fashion to movies to sports, our collective taste has always erred on the bold and exaggerated side. Commentators on NPR can describe Trump’s office decor as “nouveau riche,” but that’s the attitude we’ve always presented to the world: the loud, cocky rebels who make up for in glamor, confidence, and all-around greatness what we sometimes lack in discretion or modesty. It’s a very charismatic kind of obnoxious, in the same way that saying “everything’s bigger in Texas” annoys the other 49 states while Texans make it a point of pride.

“There is something intrinsically ‘American’ about maximalist interior design,” wrote Austin-based interior decorator Amity Worrel in a 2022 article. She described it as “materialistic, nostalgic,” and “ostentatious” — which are all very accurate descriptors for Trump’s new Oval Office style.

You might not decorate your kitchen that way. But for the room that represents America to every foreign diplomat who visits it, it seems fitting.

Elle Purnell is the elections editor at The Federalist. Her work has been featured by Fox Business, RealClearPolitics, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Independent Women’s Forum. She received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @_ellepurnell.