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When I first skimmed through the Republican Party’s 2024 platform, a 16-page document titled “Make America Great Again!”, much of it seemed Trumpian but unsurprising. Sprinkled with odd capitalization and an unusually large number of exclamation points, the platform calls for initiating “the largest deportation program in American history,” stopping “woke” government, and eliminating “market-distorting regulations” on oil, natural gas, and coal. Believe it or not, the words “climate change,” “global warming,” and “environment” do not appear.
But one section stood out to me: in a chapter titled “Bringing Common Sense to Government and Renewing the Pillars of American Civilization,” the plan calls for the restoration of “American Beauty.”
Republicans will promote the beauty of our public architecture and protect our natural treasures. We will build our nation’s cherished symbols and restore true conservation.
That’s it. No details. This is odd to me. What exactly are “our national treasures”? What does it mean to restore “real” preservation? And what is “beauty” in public architecture? As CNN recently sarcastically put it in a commentary on the party platform, “It’s not clear when or how Republicans feel American beauty ended, but it’s clear they want to restore it.” Of all the things we should unite around, Republicans want… more beautiful buildings?
Clues from Trump’s presidency suggest that, in fact, this is the case. In a Dec. 21, 2020, executive order, then-President Donald Trump praised Greek and Roman architecture for being designed to “beautify our public spaces and inspire civic pride.” Similarly, classical buildings such as the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, and the White House “serve as symbols of our system of government,” Trump said.
But by Trump’s account, by the 1950s and ’60s, government buildings had become “unremarkable” and viewed as “unappealing,” tinged by a brutalist design aesthetic. Trump slammed San Francisco’s federal building for being designed only for architects to appreciate. When the building opened in 2007, San Francisco Chronicle urban design critic John King praised its environmentally friendly design, including natural ventilation, writing that it was “a most provocative piece of architecture.” Trump said residents viewed the building as “one of the ugliest in the city.” (I’ve lived in San Francisco. I agree.) To remedy this travesty, Trump directed his administration to embrace classical, traditional architecture that “elevates and beautifies public space, inspires the human spirit, ennobles the United States, and commands the respect of the public.” So the Republican call to renew the “pillars of American civilization” may literally mean building more pillars.
Beauty does not exist in a vacuum.
But as some scholars noted at the time, the use of classical architecture in the United States has a troubled history. Reinhold Martin, a professor of architecture at Columbia University, told The New York Times in 2020 that Trump’s order, while having no practical effect, was an “attempt to exploit culture to send a coded message about white supremacy and political hegemony.” As my former colleague Camille Squires has reported, there is a long and ugly history of pro-slavery southerners using classical architecture to justify their claims. “Beauty” does not exist in a vacuum.
Meanwhile, “national treasure” can mean a variety of things. A landmark? A historic site? An artifact? A Dolly Parton-like human delight? (I’m only half-joking.) Here, too, the Trump administration has offered some hints. In August 2020, in an announcement celebrating the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act, a law that provides $9.5 billion for the maintenance of national parks, the White House praised America’s national parks as “our greatest national treasures.” So maybe that’s what the Republican platform means, but don’t expect Trump to follow through on protecting them. Months after signing the Great American Outdoors Act and just days after losing the 2020 election, the Trump administration moved to weaken the law.
As for “cherished symbols of our nation” and “true” conservation, I have no idea. Are they referring to Trump’s land conservation (largely seen as greenwashing), species conservation, or something else? I can find no mention of these phrases in the Trump Administration records, and the Trump campaign has not yet responded to my requests for clarification. (I will be sure to update this post if they do.) Last week, at Trump’s behest, delegates to the Republican National Convention passed the platform behind closed doors with few edits.
But perhaps that vagueness is the problem. Intentional or not, by failing to define these terms, the Trump campaign is effectively quelling the concerns of many voters who support clean air and water, land conservation, and wildlife protection, while making no real promises. Of course, a lack of aggressive action at the highest levels of government threatens to worsen a range of environmental crises, including climate change, biodiversity loss, and ocean acidification, and threatens to destroy the country’s natural beauty. But at least the buildings will look good.
