The Absurd Virtual Spectacle of Trump’s D.C.

Illustration by Ariel Davis Save this story Save this story Save this story Save this story You’re reading Infinite Scroll, Kyle Chayka’s weekly column on how technology shapes culture.For nearly eight years, while living in Washington, D.C., I often played out a thought experiment in my mind: Which Presidential candidate would Americans vote for if they knew, as I and my fellow-D.C.ers did, that the winning candidate would be moving into their proverbial back yard? More than ninety-three per cent of District constituents voted against Donald Trump in the 2024 election, only to find themselves living in a city remade in Trump’s image.

Last August, D.C. provided an early proving ground for the deployment of the National Guard in cities. I watched troops chase delivery drivers on Eighteenth Street, the stretch of dive bars and restaurants that entertain the city’s crowd of earnest twentysomethings, and then, eight months later, patrol aimlessly in groups of four outside of grocery stores and in public parks in the middle of quiet afternoons. Huge banners with Trump’s face on them went up on the headquarters of the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Agriculture. In December, board members installed by Trump voted to rename the Kennedy Center the Trump-Kennedy Center and had its new name emblazoned on the façade. Fences rose not just in front of the White House but around parks; in March, the grass at Logan Circle was fenced off with chain-link and opaque mesh, preventing pedestrians from crossing the park, and plans were announced to close the top of Meridian Hill Park, a popular gathering spot, for most of the summer. Trump also demolished the East Wing of the White House, of course, to make way for a vast ballroom. In case the architectural iconoclasm wasn’t enough to offend, some of the rubble from the torn-down building was dumped on the grounds of the public East Potomac Golf Links. For many locals, these incursions into the sites of daily life represented a kind of siege against which they had little recourse.

This past April, my wife and I moved to New York, for my wife’s work. There are plenty of things I miss about D.C.: the precipitous woods of Rock Creek Park, the frankly absurd number of dogs out on walks, the relative ease of making a restaurant reservation. But I have continued to be bombarded with Trump’s version of the city, this time in images on the internet, as the Administration turns D.C.’s transformation into visual propaganda. The latest round of photos shows an Ultimate Fighting Championship arena erected in front of the White House, with a Stars-and-Stripes-bedecked lighting rig that resembles roller-coaster armature. The card is set for June 14th, in honor of the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the United States—and Trump’s eightieth birthday. The juxtaposition of staid government structure and garish entertainment contraption was so ludicrous that some social-media commenters assumed that it was fake. The Pentagon, doubling down on the gimmick, is reportedly recruiting troops to attend the event—as long as they pay for their own travel and look soldierly enough for Pete Hegseth, by meeting height-and-weight requirements. With its combination of teen-boy exuberance and politicized violence, the White House x U.F.C. activation is just as brain-rotted as the Administration’s intercutting of drone strikes in Iran with video-game footage.