It’s not about the Ballroom

The East Wing! O' Alas!

The Face-the-Morning portion of The People's House lies in ruins, and from the left, a flux of X and TikTok lamentation.

And from the wreckage shall rise what? A ballroom/event space with capacity for large parties, with plentiful facilities provided for the comfort and convenience of a thousand honored guests.

The true patriot must despair, for the Orange King who claims to need a ballroom for his balls hasn't merely knocked down architecture. He drains away a fine tradition older than AOC. Before the Ballroom (as our late epoch will in history be described), there were, perforce, al fresco assemblies that lent their subtle weight to the bending arc of history towards justice.

Invited by the leader of the free world, the beautiful and best poured in from around the nation and across the globe to find themselves imbibing, with fine wine, just a splash, a soupcon! of Unhoused suffering, for this was Wasser Tanzen in a tent, touching grass beneath one's feet. And as is true for the poorest in the richest country on earth, even these grand dignitaries received, along with the rain that falls upon the just and the unjust alike, a further leveling indignity: no bathrooms. Just a row of porta-potties. Nice ones. But even where immaculate, marine-guarded and high-end, such a potty is still ineluctably porta.

Equity! In Our Democracy even those who sip champagne from crystal must eliminate into plastic.

Let's face it, though, and proudly: Poverty (well, economics in general, really) (so much math) only holds the attention of the enlightened spirits for so long. Intuitively we know that the font of liberation is the crotch.

And with that intuition, the turbid clarifies: What was intuited is seen. The majority of White House porta-potty users are sure to be cis-women, their high heels skittering on the plastic floor, their high opinions of themselves brought low. Menopausal women, women on the rag, and (God Knows) pregnant women---the ickiest---may spend half their evening in line outside the plastic boxes, chatting with the bored Marines and trying to keep their minds off anything that trickles, leaks or squirts. And presidential party porta-potties humiliate trans men, too. They've got better shoes, but let's face it, retain the excretory imperfections of their natal sex.

Ah, but trans-women? All those fine First Female This-N-Thats? As the unfavored, unimportant, unsteadied by diuretic cocktails, drain inexorably towards the portapotties, a tableau vivant forms beneath the tent and fairy lights. Liveried waiters swirl between trans gals with overflowing bodices and cis-men flanged in cummerbund: Here is (or was) an embodied dream, the brave new world that we, with stunning bravery, were bringing to shining life: Cis-men and trans-women (glamor without, capacious bladders within) are the ones we've all been waiting for.

Poof. No more tents, no more porta-potties. The Orange King has swung his wrecking balls, Dylan Mulvaney has taken a selfie, dribbling tears (I flirted with Joe Biden there!). There will be events in the event space, ladies in the ladies' room and since these parties are so often multi-culti, a cis-women dignitary from some regrettably backward (but vibrant) culture is sure to raise a stink. That is, to inaugurate a defense of the ladies' lounge-n-loo, voicing objections to sharing with the betesticled. She could even be a Queen, but not the good kind, and if American cis-female guests take their cues therefrom, and refuse to judge a lady by her lipstick rather than her beard, the indignation of the influential (like tax breaks for the rich) will trickle down. Cis-women throughout the nation may arise. They will retake the solid hills their grannies died upon---women's words (ban the "Cis!"), women's history, women's firsts, women's sports, women's dignity and, yes, their safe and private toilets... and with this regain the female power the enlightened have tried so hard to flush away.

It's not about the ballroom. It was never about the ballroom.