Even if the new ballroom - if ever it gets built - doesn't comply with current codes, that's unlikely to mean that it's not safe to occupy.

I have no problem with saying “the Ballroom will be safe to occupy”- at least as safe as anything else he’s built.

But that’s not really the issue. A president who flouts the codes and declares “I am the code.” is the issue.

And though the building will probably be “safe”, it is still the vanity project that nobody asked for, and has become a prime symbol of everything wrong with this president and administration. It is the “cake” paraded by Marie Antoinette while the citizens of Paris cannot afford bread.

The Roman general Scipio defeated Carthage on the plains of Zama after a series of expensive wars. Then Scipio destroyed the city of Carthage and sowed its ruins and surrounding fields with salt so that nothing would grow there again.

And thus should the most egregious examples of Trump’s authoritarian legacy be treated. The arch, the ballroom- level them. Pave them over with a parking lot with signs that read: “Beneath this spot lie the ruins of an authoritarian’s dream that has no place in America”.

Give our great-grandchildren places to go and wag their heads while asking “What did you do when things looked so dark?”