Clarence Page: Barack Obama’s Cheesecake Factory joke explains the state of MAGA
MAGA influencers got a bit worked up last week after former President Barack Obama mocked President Donald Trump’s gold-gold-gold-heavy Oval Office.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovation,” Obama gibed about the questionable redecoration Trump has undertaken at the White House.
“He should be on HGTV. … There’s gold everywhere. He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”
I know I speak for more than just me when I observe that Trump has turned the sacred space of “the People’s House” into a glitzy mess.
Over the years, the White House has had its share of renovations, major and minor, as well as regular efforts to update its decor. Occasionally eyebrows have been raised and tongues have clucked, as when Nancy Reagan splashed out on new china, but a simple and sober aesthetic has been maintained, as befits a democratic republic.
However, Trump has encrusted the Oval Office with gilded gewgaws and stuffed it with glittering vases, frames, trophies, platters and other trappings appropriate to the palaces of Europe that once housed autocrats who ruled by divine right.
I don’t need to remind you, as some would like to remind Trump, that the Oval Office belongs to all of us, and we’re not all thrilled with the idea of living in an updated version of the Gilded Age, as Mark........
