Kate Wagner likens Trump’s destructive act and aspirational monumentality to Versailles and the Winter Palace, sites which endured the revolutions that sought to undo them. In the self-preserving model of many European palaces, both were transformed into museums. I would argue that ready public access to historical places helps make history salient, irrespective of narrative convenience or public discomfort.
The East Wing, built under Theodore Roosevelt and expanded by Franklin D. Roosevelt, long functioned as an informal base of operations for First Ladies. Rosalynn Carter formally established it as the Office of the First Lady. In doing so, she professionalized what had previously been an unofficial sphere of “women’s work”: the exercise of soft political power through hosting, diplomacy, and public-facing care within the so-called “People’s House.”
Perhaps a better analogy of the destruction of the East Wing is ISIS ransacking Palmyra—zealots who attempt to efface history and its entangled legacies. The legacies of the White House are certainly fraught, but I th…
