A ballroom bunker is a perfect symbol for Trump 2.0 | Jan-Werner Müller

The edifice suggests a Silicon Valley-style desire to protect the president from national crises of his own makingA self-declared “secretary of war” keeps committing war crimes; people are dying in Africa because of Musk’s cuts to USAid; farm bankruptcies in the US are surging; ICE keeps acting with impunity; measles is spreading … and we are worried about a ballroom? The ballroom is not just the president’s peculiar obsession, but a symbol for many of the character of Trump 2.0: the unprecedented corruption; the destruction of checks and balances (as Congress, with its power of the purse, keeps being ignored); the sheer desire for vandalism. The swift pivot of Trump and his acolytes from the assassination attempt to pro-ballroom propaganda in the name of security adds two new, disturbing