'Vulgarian' Trump is hurting America's soul: George Will

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., September 25, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Conservative Washington Post columnist George Will is surprised that a president so critical of Europe is pushing to build a European “knock-off” of France’s Arc de Triomphe. What’s worse, he argued, is the fact that Trump wants to use it to “clutter one of the world’s great urban vistas” near the Arlington National Cemetery.

Will compares Trump’s arc to his Oval Office, which is “stuffed to overflowing with gold bric-a-brac [that] might be beautiful to someone who is colorblind. Or to connoisseurs of high-end Gilded Age brothels.” But while the Oval Office can be “visually fumigated” for the next president, Will said getting rid of an Arc de Trump would be more difficult.

And that is not the end of things, warns Will. Trump “slapped his name above Kennedy’s” on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He’s also torn down a section of the White House and now threatening to double the size of some of the rest.

“Given Trump’s gargantuan exercises of executive discretion regarding great matters of state, it might seem quaint to wonder why he cannot be stopped from treating Washington as his chew toy,” said Will. “This would be unworthy of our nation if he had exquisite taste. The fact that he revels in being a vulgarian takes a toll on the nation’s soul.”

Will said Trump has a “terrible strength peculiar to people who are incapable of embarrassment, and cannot fathom that they look ridiculous.” But recently, a few House Republicans appear to have become “healthily embarrassed about their subservience,” prompting “silent insurrections.”

The “Melania Trump Opera House” at the Kennedy Center appears to be on hold, courtesy of a handful of Republicans refusing to take the proposal seriously. Last year, some congressional Republicans introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill to rename the Opera House, but “Amazingly,” said Will, “the amendment did not make it to Melania’s husband’s desk.”

“Perhaps the Arc de Trump, its gold paint glistening when bathed by sunsets, will celebrate, in addition to its namesake, the triumph of U.S. forces in the Battle of Nuuk,” said Will, referring to Trump’s lingering push to invade and steal the island of Greenland from Denmark.

Read Will's Washington Post essay at this link.

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