The zhooshing of the Oval Office

Andrew fucking Jackson is gone.

President Biden has filled the Oval Office with images of American leaders and icons, focusing the room around massive portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt that hangs across from the Resolute Desk. It is a clear nod to a president who helped the country through significant crises, a challenge Biden now also faces.

Biden is also nodding to segments of the Democratic Party’s base via historic references. Behind the Resolute Desk is a bust of Cesar Chavez. The office also includes busts of Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt and sculpture by Allan Houser of the Chiricahua Apache tribe that once belonged to the late Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-HI) — the first Japanese-American elected to both houses of Congress.

Why talk about segments of the party’s base? Why not just say they’re activists and symbols of social justice? Why translate that into dopy insider jargon about “the base”? It’s good that busts of Cesar Chavez and Rosa Parks are there, especially after Trump’s murderous white guys, so how about not tainting it with cynical base-wooing bollocks.

A painting of Benjamin Franklin is intended to represent Biden’s interest in following science. The painting is stationed near a moon rock set on a bookshelf that is intended to remind Americans of the ambition and accompaniments of earlier generations.

I think “accompaniments” is supposed to be “accomplishments.”

Gone are the flags of branches of the military that Trump displayed behind the Resolute Desk. Biden has installed an American flag and another with a presidential seal.

From sojers to union organizers.

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