From Daily Kos: Trump goes to Mar-a-Lago to drop pretense of caring about America and laugh with the ultrawealthy
By MARK SUMNER
No matter how many times Donald Trump says it, Mar-a-Lago is not the “Southern White House.” It’s a ticky-tacky Florida extravagance that was ordered up as a vanity by a cereal heiress and designed by the set director for the Ziegfeld Follies. It’s a mixture of Arabian Nights fantasy and generic kitsch so over-the-top appalling that Congress actively rejected the property when it was offered to the Park Service. It was up for sale for $20 in 1981.
It’s also a vastly insecure heap in which diners get to overhear Trump planning military operations during the weekly “Prime Rib Night” and Chinese nationals just keep wandering in. It’s a place where, for the bargain price of $250,000 a year, members can slide Trump policy proposals on a cocktail napkin and end up secretly running the Veterans Administration or on the line for billions extorted from the Middle East. Mar-a-Lago is where Donald Trump goes when he wants to roll around in gold-plated corruption, unconstrained by the austerity imposed by the humble little White House.