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So on a lighter note the Trump ballroom is continually in the new. The two most interesting questions about it aren't addressed often enough.
Why isn't there a Presidential ball room already? Also why is there so much opposition?
What you need to understand about DC is that there are multiple power structures. Many of which aren't connected to directly to the President or WH.
The ballroom creates an issue because it will immediately become the most prestigious ballroom in the area, and arguably the US.
Right now rooms used for prestigious events are also commonly used for much less prestigious events. There's no cachet in just being at an event in any of them.
The WH ballroom changes things. There are a lot of powerful connected people who aren't going to get an invite to the WH ballroom anytime soon, even under a future Democratic presidency. So it's a blow to their egos, and they are very upset about it.
There are DC judges evaluating suits trying to find a justification to block it, and their motivation is primarily that their wives aren't going to be invited and they're going to hear about it for the next 10 years.
Of course the second reason is that by naming traditions of DC, it should be referred to as the "Trump Ballroom" for the next 100 years. And that is clearly no bueno.
I'm sure you can come up with a better model of your opponents' thoughts that this.
The social status games in DC are actually incredibly important to understanding what happens and doesn't happen there.
I phrased that as a bit of a fun jab, but for a verifiable example some of the injunctions against the USAID defunding / merging with State Department were granted by judges with wives who were active in NGOs receiving USAID money. With all of the lawsuits its a jumble mess to sort through, but I believe they were eventually overturned. So that does give some evidence that the legal reasoning was motivated to begin with.
I mean, it's a verifiable truth that many people are on average more politically aligned with their spouse than a median American.
I don't support the injunctions, but I can see a fairly clear causal pathways where the judge and their spouse both believe in a set of axioms and vibes about the republic that lead them to where they were. And yes, they were all overturned (as they should be).
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