Axar.az presents an article, "Gilding the Capital" by John Samuel Tieman.

My wife said something that's stuck with me. While listening to the news, my beloved observed this about the MAGA agenda. "The injury to the country is both moral and aesthetic. It's a crueler country now. And it's uglier." I keep thinking of the White House and Trump's proposed triumphal arch. The injuries are moral, and the evidence is aesthetic.

Unlike Roman emperors, American presidents rarely impose, in any sweeping manner, their aesthetic tastes. Trump's additions to our capital, well, let's just say they're not exactly the Baths Of Caracalla, the Colosseum of Vespasian and Titus, or the Triumphal Arch of Constantine. Since his second term began in January 2025, the president paved over the Rose Garden of First Lady Ellen Wilson in 1913. At the request of Jackie Kennedy, the garden was redesigned by renowned horticulturist Bunny Mellon in 1962. Donald Trump complained that high-heeled shoes sank into the ground. The Art Deco bathroom off the Lincoln Bedroom is now polished marble. Gold-colored decorative elements have replaced the simple woodwork of the White House. Some of the ornamentation was brought from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate. The Oval Office today resembles the background for a “Playboy” photo shoot.

And now comes Trump's triumphal arch. If completed, his arch will be between the Lincoln Memorial to the east and Arlington National Cemetery to the west. At 250 feet tall, it will dwarf the Lincoln Memorial, which stands at 99 feet. Trump wrote on social media that it “will be the GREATEST and MOST BEAUTIFUL Triumphal Arch, anywhere in the World. This will be a wonderful addition to the Washington D.C. area for all Americans to enjoy for many decades to come!” The arch is, of course, gilded and includes a towering winged figure with a Lady Liberty-like torch and crown, a figure flanked by four lions and two eagles.

I am not a wise man. But I am an artist, a poet. So this much I know. Art comes straight from the unconscious of the artist. That unconscious is conveyed through the artifact. The artifact externalizes the creator's emotions and desires. Art bypasses the rational. Sigmund Freud regarded a creator as a "successful neurotic". This certainly applies to Donald Trump, who transforms his unconscious and prohibited desires into public symbols.

I've always been taken by the fact that, when the producers needed a set for the movie “The Devil's Advocate”, they used Donald Trump's penthouse in Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. The penthouse is not devoid of art. There's a statue of Apollo, a family portrait, a photo of his father, and more. But not much more. The art is more decorative than thought-provoking, and is one with the overwhelming gilding. And that's the point. The point isn't for the viewer to pause and contemplate. The point is to overwhelm. Because if you pause – it's vacuous. What's on the other side of the gilding isn't golden light. It's darkness. You don't contemplate an artist's vision. You contemplate Trump's darkness. The injuries are moral, and the evidence is aesthetic.

Following the recent budget announcements, which included a line item for dismantling the Institute of Museum and Library Services, our president said, “I don't believe in building libraries or museums.” IMLS is the only federal support for libraries and museums across the country. What is going on inside a person such that this person hates knowledge and art?

We look in vain if we try to find an ideological form for Trump's aesthetics. This isn't socialist realism, for example. This is Trump's inner darkness imposed upon a democratic republic. This is malignant narcissism gilding the nation's capital. President Trump puts kids in cages, praises white Christian nationalists, claims that climate change is a “hoax,” bans Muslims from entering the country, arrests immigrants, calls Mexicans “rapists”, and claims that Jews who vote Democratic are “stupid.” Trump isn’t simply crude. He's cruel. It's a crueler nation now. And that's why it's uglier.