President Donald Trump has reinstated his controversial plan to control federal architectural design, signing an executive order titled "Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again" on August 28. The order, which Trump first proposed in 2020 before being rescinded by Joe Biden, mandates classical architecture as the preferred style for federal buildings in Washington D.C. and nationwide, raising concerns among critics who compare it to authoritarian aesthetic control.

The executive order declares that "in the District of Columbia, classical architecture shall be the preferred and default architecture for Federal public buildings absent exceptional factors necessitating another kind of architecture." As part of this initiative, Trump has proposed constructing a massive 90,000 square foot White House ballroom with an estimated cost of $200 million, which would be the largest addition ever built to the complex and would dwarf the existing 50,000 square foot structure.

Justin Shubow, a Trump ally and head of the National Civic Art Society who helped draft the document, defended the order while standing on the National Mall. "This is a city inspired by Ancient Rome—meant to be a new Rome—a timeless republic that will never die," Shubow proclaimed, language that critics say echoes historical authoritarian rhetoric. Trump has spuriously invoked the roles of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in designing the Capitol and White House to justify his position that monumental, classical forms are the only legitimate style for government buildings.

Critics argue that Trump's order operates on authoritarian principles similar to Nazi Germany's cultural control, where the state dictated what was considered beautiful, permissible, and legitimate. They point to historical parallels with Adolf Hitler and his chosen architect Albert Speer, who mandated monumental classicism while denouncing modernism as degenerate. The comparison extends to the Führerprinzip—the Nazi leader principle where all decisions flowed from an infallible ruler—which applied not only to politics but also to culture and architecture.

However, experts note that Trump's version has little in common with genuine classical architecture or the Georgian and Federal styles of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Those historical styles were distinguished by simplicity, balanced proportions, and were deliberately based on Enlightenment principles of reason, clarity, and order, as well as ideals derived from ancient Greece and Rome. Critics describe Trump's approach as having as much connection to classical beauty as the Venetian Las Vegas has to the actual City of Venice, calling it "mega-galactic kitsch."

The architectural order is part of Trump's broader cultural offensive against the arts. Throughout his presidency, Trump consistently targeted cultural institutions, denouncing emergency pandemic funding for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as wasteful despite the trivial amounts compared to corporate bailouts. He also attacked Smithsonian Institution exhibitions addressing racism and inequality, calling them "toxic propaganda" and opposing efforts to tell America's history from the perspective of the oppressed.

Every Trump budget proposal included elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities, agencies whose combined budgets cost less than a single fighter jet. Public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, faced defunding under his administration. Meanwhile, Trump invested energy in nationalist spectacle projects, calling for a National Garden of American Heroes as part of preparations for the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence in 2026.

Historians warn that the comparison with Nazi Germany is not rhetorical excess but a legitimate historical warning. From 1933 onward, Hitler's regime sought total control of culture through the Reich Chamber of Culture, which dictated who could work in the arts. Modernist art was ridiculed in the 1937 "Degenerate Art" exhibition before facing destruction, while heroic paintings of farmers and soldiers were mass-produced to glorify the state. Hitler believed monumental classical forms would project the eternity of the Reich, with Albert Speer's megalomaniac designs for Berlin conceived to overwhelm individuals and convey obedience.

Critics argue that Trump's aesthetics cannot be separated from his class position and that of the oligarchy he represents. For the wealthy elite, beauty serves as ornamentation to proclaim and justify wealth and power through marble facades, gilded interiors, and monumental statues. Critical art—whether socially conscious novels, modernist experimentation, or architecture designed for human needs—challenges this order by exposing exploitation and provoking thought.

The order emerges during what critics describe as a crisis of capitalism, where the ruling elite, unable to address inequality and other social problems, turns toward authoritarianism. They argue that for those in power, critical art is intolerable because it raises questions about war, poverty, exploitation, and global worker unity—evident in works like Diego Rivera's industrial frescos and Pablo Picasso's "Guernica."

Opponents of the order argue that in a genuinely democratic society, decisions about architecture and culture would emerge from broad discussion involving artists, workers, and entire communities, rather than being imposed by decree. They contend that the defense of culture cannot be entrusted to liberal politicians or wealthy patrons, but must fall to the working class, whose interests lie in universal access to art, education, and enlightenment.

Critics conclude that Trump's "Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again" order represents not genuine aesthetic preference but a declaration of cultural control that seeks to discipline art into propaganda. They argue that like historical authoritarian monuments, it emerges from weakness rather than strength, as American capitalism faces inequality, militarism, and crisis. The order is viewed as part of a broader campaign to suffocate culture and redirect it toward nationalist purposes, representing what opponents call a monument to fear erected by a ruling class in decline.