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President Trump has long acknowledged that he doesn’t read books, so perhaps he’s never cracked the spine of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” But hasn’t he seen one of the several movies? Does he really not know that Gatsby is a tragedy about class, excess and hubris?
It seems not. On Halloween, there was Trump, dressed as himself, hosting a Gatsby-themed party at his Gatsby-era Mar-a-Lago estate. The president was fresh from a diplomatic tour of Asia during which he’d swept up an array of golden gifts (a crown!) from heads of state paying tribute in hopes of not paying tariffs.
Trump’s arriving guests, costumed as Roaring ’20s flappers, bootleggers and pre-crash tycoons, passed a scantily clad woman seductively writhing in a giant Champagne glass, then entered his gilded ballroom beneath a sign in Art Deco script pronouncing the night’s theme: “A little party never killed nobody.”
That’s the title of a song from the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 film take on Gatsby, the most recent. Perhaps Trump is unaware that in the wake of the fictional Gatsby’s own debauched party, three people died, including Gatsby.
The tone-deaf Trump faced a comeuppance far short of tragedy after his party, but painful nonetheless: a blue wave in Tuesday’s elections. Revulsion at his imperial presidency swamped Republican candidates and causes.
The apparent ignorance of Mr. Make America Great Again about one of the great American novels, now in its centennial year, wasn’t the worst of Trump’s weekend show of excess. This was: The president of the United States held court at Mar-a-Lago, amid free-flowing liquor and tables laden with food, hours before federal food aid would end for 42 million Americans. Meanwhile, more than 1 million federal employees were furloughed or worked without pay amid a five-week-old government shutdown, some of them joining previously fired public servants at food banks. The online People magazine juxtaposed a photo of Trump surveying his Palm Beach party with a shot of nearby Miamians in a food line.
The president, who for nearly 10 months has seized powers he doesn’t have under federal law and the Constitution, professed to be all but powerless to avert the nutrition assistance cutoff, despite two federal judges’ rulings that he do so. And, characteristically, he claimed to be blameless about the shutdown that provoked the nutrition crisis.
“It’s their fault,” Trump said of congressional Democrats as he flew to Mar-a-Lago for the fete. “Everything is their fault. It’s so easily solved.”
How? Why, Democrats have to bend the knee, of course. They must abandon their quest to get Trump and Republicans to reverse their Medicaid cuts and to extend Obamacare subsidies for the working poor. Even as Mr. Art of the Deal claims (falsely) to have settled eight wars, bargaining even with Hamas, he’s refused to negotiate with Democrats. The shutdown is now the longest ever, on Tuesday surpassing the 35-day record Trump set in his first term.
There’s more.
En route to Florida aboard Air Force One, the presidential plane that Trump is replacing with a truly royal jet, a gift from Qatar, and having left behind the ruins of the East Wing where his $300-million ballroom will rise, Trump took to social media to boast of his latest project in the Mar-a-Lago-fication of the White House: an all-marble and gold do-over of the bathroom adjoining the Lincoln Bedroom. “Highly polished, Statuary marble!” he crowed, sending two dozen photos in a series of posts. Trump wrote that the previous 1940s-era bathroom “was totally inappropriate for the Lincoln Era,” but his changes fixed that.
“Art Deco doesn’t go with, you know, 1850 and civil wars and all of the problems,” he’d told wealthy donors last month. “But what does is statuary marble. So I ripped it apart and we built the bathroom. It’s absolutely gorgeous and totally in keeping with that time.”
And with that, Trump again showed his ignorance of America’s history as well as its literature. That said, the new bathroom is more attractive than the one at Mar-a-Lago in which Trump stashed boxes of government documents, including top-secret papers, after his first term.
Trump’s lust for power and its trappings seems to have made him blind to bad optics and deaf to the dissonance of his utterances. The politician who’s gotten so much credit — and won two of three presidential elections — for speaking to working-class Americans’ grievances now seems completely out of touch. There’s also his family’s open accrual of wealth, especially in crypto, and Trump’s recent demand for $230 million from the ever-accommodating Justice Department, to compensate him for the past legal cases against him for keeping government documents and attempting to reverse his 2020 defeat.
All of this while Americans’ costs of living remain high, people are out of jobs thanks to his policies and longtime residents, including some citizens, are swept up in his immigrant detentions and deportations, sundering families.
This week’s election results aren’t the only thing that suggests Trump is finally paying a price. So did the release of several polls timed for the first anniversary of his reelection. Despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, his job approval ratings are the lowest since the ignominious end of his first term. Majorities oppose his handling of most issues, including the ones — the economy and immigration — that helped elect him.
The narrator in “The Great Gatsby” famously says of two central characters, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
I’m looking forward to the day when the careless Trump is gone and his mess can be cleaned up — including all that gold defiling the People’s House.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
Trump demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of “The Great Gatsby,” treating the novel as a mere aesthetic inspiration rather than comprehending its central critique of excess, class division, and moral decay. The article suggests that Trump does not grasp that the novel functions as a cautionary tale about the destructive consequences of unbridled consumption and hubris, nor does he appear aware that the fictional Gatsby’s party ends in tragedy with three deaths.
The timing of the elaborate Halloween celebration at Mar-a-Lago represented a profoundly tone-deaf display of excess occurring mere hours before an estimated 42 million Americans lost access to federal food assistance, while simultaneously over one million federal employees faced furloughs or worked without compensation due to a five-week government shutdown. This juxtaposition of lavish indulgence against widespread economic hardship among ordinary Americans revealed a disconnect from the material realities facing the nation.
Trump’s claims of powerlessness regarding the nutrition assistance cutoff are contradicted by federal court rulings ordering the continuation of SNAP funding, indicating either disingenuousness or a troubling disregard for judicial authority. The article contends that Trump has seized executive powers he does not legally possess under federal law and the Constitution while simultaneously feigning helplessness when politically convenient.
Trump has repeatedly blamed Democrats for the shutdown crisis while refusing to negotiate substantively, instead demanding that Democrats capitulate to Republican demands regarding Medicaid cuts and Obamacare subsidies. This absolutist stance contrasts sharply with the president’s claims of being a skilled dealmaker capable of resolving international conflicts.
Trump’s renovations to the Lincoln Bedroom bathroom demonstrate ignorance of American history, as his choice of Art Deco marble and gold finishes contradicts rather than complements the historical period and significance of the space. His dismissal of 1940s design as “totally inappropriate” and mischaracterization of what represents the Lincoln Era reflects a troubling gap in historical knowledge.
Trump’s open family accumulation of wealth, particularly through cryptocurrency ventures, combined with his demand for $230 million from the Justice Department as compensation for past legal cases, exemplifies a brazen disregard for democratic norms while ordinary Americans struggle with high costs of living and job losses resulting from his policies.
Trump’s position as a champion of working-class grievances has become undermined by his apparent complete detachment from the economic conditions facing average Americans, including those displaced by his immigration enforcement policies and family separations resulting from deportations.
Trump’s job approval ratings have declined to their lowest levels since the conclusion of his first term, and Tuesday’s election results demonstrate voter rejection of his governance, suggesting that Americans are beginning to hold him accountable for these displays of excess and disconnection.
Different views on the topic
The White House has rejected criticism of the Halloween event and Trump’s handling of the SNAP funding situation, arguing that Democrats share primary responsibility for the government shutdown and possess the unilateral ability to resolve the impasse at any moment by capitulating to Republican demands[1]. According to this perspective, Trump has consistently called upon Democrats to reopen the government rather than bearing responsibility for the continued closure.
The administration has argued that Trump’s apparent legal uncertainty regarding SNAP funding authority stems from genuine questions about constitutional and statutory constraints on executive power during government shutdowns, rather than from willingness or indifference[1]. The White House has suggested that Trump would eagerly provide the funding if courts definitively grant the necessary legal authorization, pointing to his prior decisions to continue military and law enforcement pay during shutdowns as evidence of his willingness to fund essential services when legally able to do so.
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