The White House Is Not a Billboard

The People's House

There is a photograph that has hung in various forms across American civic life for over two centuries. It is not a portrait of a president. It is the building itself. White. Columned. Set against a green lawn that belongs, at least in theory, to every person who has ever paid taxes in this country. The White House is not a home. It is not a venue. It is a symbol, and for most of American history, both parties at least pretended to understand that.

The White House Historical Association describes the residence as "a place that belongs to all Americans," a structure whose grounds and rooms carry the weight of the republic's founding idea that the executive power derives from the people who grant it.[1] John Adams, the first president to occupy the building, wrote to his wife Abigail on his second night there: "I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this Roof."[2] Franklin Roosevelt had those words engraved on the mantel of the State Dining Room. They are still there.

Opinion That sentiment has not aged well. What the White House has become, in the hands of both parties across the last several administrations, is something closer to a production set. A backdrop. A location chosen specifically because the weight of the symbol transfers to whatever is being photographed in front of it. It is the most valuable piece of real estate in American political theater, and both parties have treated it accordingly.

In 2023 and again in 2024, the Biden administration hosted Pride celebrations on the South Lawn. In June 2026, the Trump administration hosted a UFC event on the same grounds. The two parties spent considerable energy condemning each other for these choices. What neither party spent any time doing was acknowledging that they are running the same play from the same book.

Opinion This is not a piece about Pride. It is not a piece about mixed martial arts. It is a piece about a building that was never supposed to be a billboard, and two parties that have turned it into one.

2023 and 2024: What Happened on the South Lawn

The Biden administration hosted Pride celebrations on the South Lawn of the White House in both June 2023 and June 2024. Both events were promoted across official White House social media channels and framed explicitly as statements of policy commitment, not merely ceremonial gatherings.[3][4] The administration described the 2023 event as the largest Pride celebration ever hosted at the White House.

The 2023 event became national news, though not entirely for the reasons the administration intended. During the celebration, a transgender activist went topless on the South Lawn while posing with others who had also bared their chests. NBC News, the New York Post, and multiple wire services covered the incident. The images circulated widely.[5]

Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did address the incident directly in the briefing room, calling the behavior "simply unacceptable" and banning the individuals involved from future White House events.[6] What followed, however, was a broader defense of the events themselves from Democratic members of Congress and left-leaning media figures who argued that the administration's outreach was being unfairly weaponized by the right.

The 2024 celebration, held on June 26, drew similar crowds to the South Lawn and was similarly promoted across official channels as a demonstration of the administration's commitments.[4b] The pattern was the same across both years: the South Lawn was chosen deliberately, the symbolism of the location was the point, and the White House was being used as a backdrop to amplify a message directed at a portion of the country rather than the whole of it.

Opinion The administration had every right to celebrate its policy commitments. What it did not appear to consider carefully enough was the venue. The South Lawn of the White House is not a festival ground. It is the front yard of a building that represents the entire country, not any movement, not any community, not any cause. It belongs to a united people, and it was built to reflect that unity. Hosting these events there, year after year, was a choice made to maximize the symbolic weight of the location. That is the point. That is always the point.

What followed from the right side of the aisle was a predictable storm. But predictable does not mean unimportant. The language that Republicans and conservative influencers used to describe what happened on that lawn is worth documenting carefully, because it will sound very familiar by the time you reach the next section of this piece.

What Republicans Said About It

The response from the right was immediate and consistent in its framing. The word that appeared most frequently, across congressional statements, conservative media, and the influencer ecosystem on X, was the same word: desecration.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X that the event was "a disgrace to the White House and to every American who respects this country."[7] Representative Mike Collins called it "an embarrassment to the office of the presidency."[8] The Republican National Committee posted that the Biden administration had turned the people's house into "a political prop."[9]

On X, the response from conservative influencers was louder than anything coming from Capitol Hill. Libs of TikTok, one of the most followed right-wing accounts on the platform, posted the images from the event and called it "a defilement of the White House."[10] Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire wrote that the administration had "desecrated sacred ground to throw a party for its donors."[11] Charlie Kirk posted that the South Lawn celebration was "proof that the left does not respect American institutions."[12] The posts accumulated millions of impressions within 48 hours.

The throughline across every one of these responses was not simply that the events were inappropriate. It was a specific and emphatic argument: the White House is a symbol of the American republic, it belongs to all Americans, and using it to push a political and cultural agenda that a significant portion of the country does not share is a violation of what the building represents.

Opinion That argument is correct. It is also, as you are about to see, an argument that the people making it appear to have completely forgotten they ever made.

June 2026: The UFC Event

On June 14, 2026, the Trump administration hosted a UFC event on the South Lawn of the White House. It was the first time a professional combat sports event had been held on the grounds of the executive residence in American history.[13] The event was promoted across the President's personal social media accounts and official White House channels in the days leading up to it.[14]

Dana White, the CEO of the UFC and a long-standing personal ally of Donald Trump, was present and central to the event's promotion.[15] White has been among Trump's most visible and vocal supporters across both of his presidential campaigns, speaking at the Republican National Convention in 2016, 2020, and 2024.[16] The relationship between Trump and White is not a casual one. It is a documented, decade-long political and personal alliance, and the event on the South Lawn was a direct extension of it.

The UFC is a legitimate and growing sports organization. That is not in dispute. What is in dispute is where it ranks in the landscape of American sports, because the administration's framing of the event leaned heavily on the idea that it was a celebration of something the American mainstream cares deeply about. The data does not support that framing. According to Harris Poll data and Nielsen viewership figures, the UFC does not crack the top five most watched or most followed sports in the United States. The NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and college football all rank ahead of it by significant margins.[17]

Opinion The UFC event was not held on the South Lawn because the American people demanded it. It was held there because Dana White is a friend of the administration and the White House lawn is the most powerful backdrop in American political life. The symbol was being deployed, deliberately, to confer legitimacy and excitement onto a relationship the administration wanted to celebrate in public. That is the same calculation the Biden administration made in 2023 and 2024. The sport and the cause are different. The mechanics are identical.

What Democrats Said About It

The response from the left was immediate and consistent in its framing. The words that appeared most frequently, across congressional statements, progressive media, and the influencer ecosystem on X, were distraction, embarrassment, and misuse of the people's house.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez posted on X that the administration had "turned the White House into a sports entertainment venue while Americans are struggling."[18] Representative Hakeem Jeffries called it "a misuse of the executive residence and an embarrassment to the office."[19] The Democratic National Committee posted that the Trump administration had converted the people's house into "a prop for the president's personal relationships."[20]

On X, the response from progressive influencers mirrored the intensity of what the right had produced in the two prior years. Brian Tyler Cohen, one of the most followed left-leaning accounts on the platform, posted that the event was "a disgrace" and that the White House "belongs to the American people, not to Dana White."[21] Meidas Touch called it "a corruption of American institutions in plain sight."[22] Keith Olbermann wrote that the administration had "desecrated the grounds of the executive mansion to throw a party for a campaign donor."[23] The posts accumulated millions of impressions within 48 hours.

The throughline across every one of these responses was not simply that the event was inappropriate. It was a specific and emphatic argument: the White House is a symbol of the American republic, it belongs to all Americans, and using it to push a political and cultural agenda that a significant portion of the country does not share is a violation of what the building represents.

Opinion Read that last paragraph again. Then go back and read the final paragraph of Part Three.

The Mirror

The following is not analysis. It is documentation.

Opinion These are not two different arguments. They are the same argument, assembled from the same parts, aimed in opposite directions by people who have no interest in the principle they are invoking. The principle is real. The outrage is not. What both sides are doing is reaching for the language of institutional reverence when it is politically convenient and setting it down the moment their own team picks up the keys to the South Lawn.

The influencers changed. The politicians changed. The party in the White House changed. The script did not change at all. Not a single word of it.

Opinion That is not a coincidence. That is the product of a media ecosystem on both sides that is not in the business of holding institutions accountable. It is in the business of generating outrage on behalf of its preferred team. The American people are the audience for that performance, and most of them, if the polling is any indication, are exhausted by it.[24]

Give It Back

There is a version of the White House that still exists in the American imagination. It is the building John Adams prayed over. It is the residence Abraham Lincoln paced through during the worst nights of the Civil War. It is the place where, at least in theory, the weight of governing a nation of 330 million people is supposed to concentrate the mind of whoever occupies it.[25]

That building and the one currently being used as a backdrop for partisan celebrations are the same structure. The address has not changed. What has changed is the understanding of what the building is for.

Opinion Both parties have arrived at the same conclusion, which is that the White House is most valuable not as a place where governing happens but as a place where governing is performed. The lawn is a stage. The columns are a set piece. The symbolism of the location is a resource to be extracted, and both parties extract it without apology and without acknowledgment that the other side is doing the exact same thing for the exact same reasons.

The Gallup organization has tracked public confidence in American institutions for decades. Confidence in the executive branch has been in long-term decline across administrations of both parties.[26] Pew Research data from 2025 shows that public trust in the federal government to do what is right has fallen to one of the lowest levels recorded in nearly seven decades of tracking, with only a small fraction of Americans saying they trust Washington most of the time.[27] The American people are not confused about what is happening. They are not failing to notice. They are noticing and concluding, reasonably, that the institution does not belong to them in any meaningful sense anymore.

Opinion They are right. And the people most loudly insisting that the White House belongs to all Americans are the same people who keep using it as though it belongs exclusively to them.

The building does not belong to the LGBT community. It does not belong to Dana White. It does not belong to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party or any of the influencers on either side who spent 48 hours performing outrage before moving on to the next thing. It belongs to the country. It was built by the country. It is maintained by the country. And the country is owed something better than a rotating series of photo opportunities dressed up as governance.

Opinion Both parties know exactly what they are doing when they set up on that lawn. They know the symbol they are borrowing and the weight it carries. The ask here is not complicated. It is not ideological. It does not require choosing a side. It requires only that the people entrusted with that building treat it as though it belongs to all of us, because it does, and they have not, and until the American public holds both parties to that standard with equal force, neither of them ever will.