Church & State

Americans like to think our national arguments are original. Every generation likes to believe it is living through uniquely calamitous times, utterly disconnected from what has gone before. Few debates are more stubbornly cyclical -- or more willfully misunderstood -- than the struggle between religion and government. The battle over church and state didn't suddenly erupt in the twenty-first century. It wasn't created by modern secularists, or contemporary "culture warriors," or even activist judges. It's as old as the republic itself -- and it was intentionally written into the nation's political DNA by people who had seen firsthand what happens when faith and power sit together on a throne.

In the fall of 2025, the East Wing of the White House—one of the most evocative, freighted, storied rooms in American public life—ceased to exist. Not to be remodeled. Not to be quietly modified. Destroyed. Reduced to dust so that a massive new ballroom complex could be built in its place, at breathtaking speed and with stunning secrecy. What vanished was not merely an auxiliary structure, but a living archive of presidential history, wartime survival planning, First Lady leadership, and one of the most extraordinary cultural rooms ever housed within the executive mansion. The destruction of the East Wing was not simply a construction decision. It was an act of erasure.