As Slate reported on Friday:
"For centuries, autocrats, authoritarians, and dictators have held a fascination with using architecture as a political tool to glorify their regimes, often while also dismissing modern architectural styles as lowbrow, cold, or weak. The current crop of far-right world leaders with authoritarian impulses is no different-and that now appears to include President Donald Trump."
Adolf Hitler was fascinated with classical architecture.
So was Benito Mussolini.
According to Slate:
"When totalitarianism flourished across Europe, so did 'fascist architecture,' or the construction of new federal monuments and buildings in the same architectural style. More than just a way to telegraph leaders' political vision for the country, it was a way to inspire and reinforce national unity, inextricably weaving together lived experience and political philosophy. At the heart of all that building was a belief that architecture could be a political statement about whom society serves and what it values."
This is the sentiment conveyed in Trump's draft order:
"Federal building designs should" inspire the public for their aesthetics, make Americans feel proud of our public buildings. Classical and traditional architectural styles have proven their ability to inspire such respect for our system of self-government."
Slate elaborates:
"Frequently, the leaders who adopted a national architectural aesthetic styled themselves as economic populists, investing in federally funded infrastructure projects to signal a kind of economic rebirth."
Fascism is the unification of government and industry, infusing nationalism as an implementation tool.
Read again what Sen. Moynihan wrote in Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture:
"Design must flow from the architectural profession to the government and not vice-versa."
In other words, the government should not be dictating design.
This is just another in an increasing list of authoritarian actions Donald Trump has been taking since his was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial.
In the two weeks since Trump's Republican Senate enablers let the president off the hook, the president has used the captive audience at the annual National Prayer Breakfast to vow vengeance against those who testified against him; fired impeachment witnesses; insinuated himself in the prison sentence of ally Roger Stone; enlisted his Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the division that oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), against "sanctuary" New York by preventing that state's residents from enrolling in programs to expedite international travel; and is in the process of deploying the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), the Custom and Border Protection (CBP)'s equivalent of a SWAT team, to "democrat sanctuary cities" to help round up "illegals".
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