What’s Behind Trump’s ‘Restore American Beauty’ Plan? – Mother Jones

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When I first looked through it through the Republican Party’s 2024 policy platform, a 16-page document titled “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” that reads largely as Trumpian but not surprisingly. A platform that is peppered with odd capitalization and an unusually large number of exclamation points, calls for launching the “largest deportation program in American history,” stopping the “woke” government, and ending “market-distorting restrictions” on oil, natural gas, and coal. Although I didn’t expect it, the terms “climate change,” “global warming,” or “environment” are not mentioned.

But there was one section that caught my attention. In a chapter titled “Introduce Common Sense into Government and Renew the Pillars of American Civilization,” the plan calls for restoring “the American Beauty”:

Republicans will promote beauty in public architecture and protect our natural treasures. We will build back our nation’s cherished symbols and restore real conservation efforts.

That was it. No elaboration. To me, that’s odd. What exactly are “our national treasures”? What does restoring “authentic” preservation efforts mean? And what is “beauty” in public architecture? As CNN joked in its latest platform note, “It’s unclear when or how Republicans believe American beauty ended, but they clearly want to restore it.” Of all the things to unite behind, are Republicans calling for… nicer buildings?

Clues from Trump’s time in office suggest so. In a Dec. 21, 2020, executive order, then-President Donald Trump praised Greek and Roman architecture for being designed to “beautify public spaces and inspire civic pride.” Similarly, classical-style buildings like the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol, the Supreme Court and the White House, Trump noted, “have become iconic symbols of our system of government.”

But by the 1950s and 1960s, Trump wrote, government buildings had become “unremarkable” and were seen as “unattractive,” tarnished by a brutalist design aesthetic. He criticized the San Francisco Federal Building, saying it was designed solely for architects. When the building opened in 2007, San Francisco Chronicle Urban critic John King praised the environmentally friendly design, including natural ventilation, writing that it was “architecture at its finest.” Trump said residents viewed it as “one of the ugliest structures in their city.” (I used to live in San Francisco. I disagree.) To combat such travesties, Trump has ordered his administration to embrace classical and traditional architecture that “elevates and beautifies public spaces, inspires the human spirit, ennobles the United States, and commands the respect of the public at large.” So the Republican Party’s call to restore “the pillars of American civilization” may literally mean building more pillars.

But as some academics noted at the time, the use of classical architecture in the United States has a checkered history. Reinhold Martin, a professor of architecture at Columbia University, said New York Times in 2020 that Trump’s order, while having no real force, was “an attempt to use culture to send coded messages about white supremacy and political hegemony.” As my former colleague Camille Squires reported, there is a long, ugly history of pro-slavery activists using classical architecture to make their case. “Beauty” doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Meanwhile, “national treasures” can mean a lot of different things. Landmarks? Historic sites? Artifacts? Dolly Parton’s joy? (I’m only half-joking.) The Trump administration is dropping hints again: In an August 2020 announcement celebrating the Great American Outdoors Act, a $9.5 billion bill to support national parks, the White House praised America’s national parks as “our most important national treasures.” So maybe that’s what the Republican Party platform stands for, but I wouldn’t count on Trump protecting them. Months after signing the Great American Outdoors Act, just days after losing the 2020 election, the Trump administration took action to weaken the law.

As for “cherished symbols of our Nation” and “real” environmental efforts — I have no idea. Does the GOP mean Trump land conservation efforts (which have largely been seen as greenwashing), species protections, or something else? I couldn’t find any mention of those phrases in Trump administration documents, and the Trump campaign has yet to respond to my request for clarification. (If they do, I’ll be sure to update this post.) Last week, at Trump’s behest, delegates at the Republican National Convention voted on that platform behind closed doors, with almost no editing.

But perhaps the crux of the matter is the ambiguity. Whether intentionally or not, by not defining these terms, the Trump campaign may be effectively blunting the concerns of many voters who support clean air and water, land conservation, and wildlife protection, while making no real commitments. Of course, without aggressive action at the highest levels of government, we risk losing the country’s natural beauty as various environmental crises—climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and others—risk getting worse. But hey, at least our buildings will look pretty.