President Donald Trump is once again proving he understands something that the Washington establishment has forgotten for decades: the buildings America constructs are a direct reflection of American values. By sharing a Washington Post opinion piece by Senator Jim Banks calling for a return to beautiful, classical architecture over soulless brutalist design, Trump is signaling that the Make America Great Again movement isn’t just about economics and borders — it’s about reclaiming American civilization itself.
And if that makes the modernist architecture crowd and their coastal elite patrons uncomfortable, good. It should.
The Brutalist Betrayal of the American People
For anyone who has ever walked past a federal courthouse that looks like a Soviet-era parking garage, or stared up at a government office building that resembles a concrete bunker more than a temple of democracy, you already understand the problem Senator Banks is writing about. Brutalism — that cold, angular, deliberately harsh architectural style that dominated government construction from the mid-20th century onward — was never designed with the American citizen in mind. It was designed to intimidate, to signal bureaucratic power, and frankly, to reflect a progressive ideology that viewed traditional beauty as bourgeois and old-fashioned.
The results have been disastrous. American cities are littered with federal and civic buildings that inspire nothing — no pride, no awe, no sense that the people’s government is something worthy of reverence. Compare a modern federal building to the Lincoln Memorial, the Supreme Court, or the Library of Congress, and the contrast is jarring. Those classical structures communicate permanence, dignity, and the weight of American ideals. The brutalist replacements communicate one thing: that the bureaucrats in charge stopped caring what you thought a long time ago.
Senator Banks has been one of the most consistent and courageous voices in Congress on this issue, and the fact that even the Washington Post — hardly a friend to the America First movement — felt compelled to publish his argument speaks to how broadly this sentiment resonates with ordinary Americans.
Trump’s Executive Order Was Just the Beginning
This is not a new fight for President Trump. During his first term, he signed an executive order directing that future federal buildings be designed in classical and traditional architectural styles — a move that was immediately celebrated by historic preservationists and everyday Americans who were tired of ugly government buildings, and immediately attacked by the architectural establishment and their progressive allies in academia and the media.
The Biden administration, predictably, reversed the order almost immediately upon taking office. Because of course they did. The left’s hatred of traditional American aesthetics runs deep — it is part of the same ideological current that pulls down statues, renames buildings, and treats American history as something to be ashamed of rather than celebrated.
Now, with Trump back in the White House and an America First Congress pushing forward, the moment is ripe to make this fight permanent. Senator Banks and allies in Congress are working to codify these standards into law, so that no future administration can simply erase them with the stroke of a pen. That is exactly the kind of durable, civilizational conservatism that the MAGA movement has always stood for.
- Classical architecture reflects American founding principles and Greco-Roman democratic traditions
- Brutalist and deconstructivist styles have dominated federal construction for decades, producing universally unpopular results
- Trump’s first-term executive order on architectural standards was reversed by Biden — a reversal that itself should be reversed
- Legislation to permanently restore classical standards would protect future generations from ideologically driven ugly design
- Public polling has consistently shown Americans prefer traditional architectural styles for government buildings
This Is a Culture War Worth Fighting
The left loves to mock conservatives for caring about things like this. They’ll call it superficial, a distraction, performative. Don’t believe it for a second. The people who control what your public institutions look like are the same people who control what your children are taught in school, what stories get told in your museums, and what values get embedded in your culture. Architecture is not decoration — it is ideology made physical.
When the federal government builds a courthouse that looks like a fortress designed to crush the human spirit, it is sending a message. When it builds one that echoes the grandeur of the classical world — columns, symmetry, stonework, beauty — it is sending a very different message: that this government exists to serve a free and dignified people, and that it takes that responsibility seriously enough to reflect it in stone and marble.
The progressive architectural establishment will fight this tooth and nail. They always do. They have professional associations, academic departments, and decades of institutional control on their side. But they do not have the American people. Poll after poll has shown that when given the choice, Americans overwhelmingly prefer classical and traditional styles for their public buildings. The elites simply don’t care what you prefer — and that is exactly the attitude that the Trump movement exists to challenge.
President Trump sharing Senator Banks’ piece is a signal that the White House remains committed to this fight. It deserves the full support of every American who believes that a great nation should build great things — and that beauty, tradition, and civic pride are not relics of the past but the foundation of a flourishing future.
Bottom Line
Making America beautiful again is not a joke, a slogan, or a side issue. It is part of the same core conviction that drives everything from securing the border to restoring American manufacturing: the belief that America is worth fighting for, worth preserving, and worth building up — literally. Senator Jim Banks is doing important work, President Trump is paying attention, and it’s time for Congress to make the restoration of American architectural standards the law of the land. Our grandchildren deserve to inherit a country that looks as great as it is.
