Weeks ahead of Trump's second Inauguration, I found myself watching Steve Bannon giving a speech at a War Room . "We're flooding the zone [with cabinet picks]!" He stated to a hundreds were crowded into an event space festooned with late-empire antiques and weathered, imported French mirrors at a new restaurant called Butterworth's. Yet despite winning the popular vote, affiliation with the Trump administration can still get you barred from watering holes in DC. In mid December a block up Pennsylvania Avenue, two incoming Trump officials were refused service at Beuchert’s Saloon. Though the owner condemned the waitress’ activist actions after the fact, the incident signals that, at least inside the Beltway, the anti-Trump resistance is alive and well.
A few months into Trump’s term, it appears that strategy of "flooding the zone" has worked out better than any DC pundits could have imagined. MAGA loyalists and enemies of the establishment were confirmed by the Senate: Tulsi Gabbard is now the NSA Director, RFK is running HHS, and Kash Patel, who famously said that he would turn the J. Edgar Hoover FBI HQ into a museum on day one, is now Director of the Agency. Many of Trump’s top cabinet picks are former Democrats, indicative of the transition of Trumpism from the backwaters of American culture to the mainstream. If one examines the differences between Trump’s first stay in the White House and his second, look no further than its unofficial headquarters to see how the first Admin was different from what we see today. You may have heard stories about the old MAGA hangout from Trump's first term, situated in the old Post Office Museum, Trump Hotel. It was a grandiose Bar-A-Lago of sorts. The bar sat beneath massive a vaulted spire with a sprawling and echoey space with admin notables scattered across a vast marble floor. They sipped $25 martinis and munched $50 orders of hickory-smoked bacon as they discussed the latest Trump vs. the Swamp showdown. I sipped a few drinks in that mausoleum that doubled as a bar; though because I was wearing my FAKE NEWS flip flops and Hawaiian shirt, my lack of formal attire drew some skeptical stares.
This space is now owned by the multinational hotel chain, the Waldorf Astoria. Contrast that with a new hangout which accommodates MAGA, MAHA, Hawaiian shirt-wearing kooks like me, and everyone in between: Butterworth's is a cozier, more intimate space just blocks away from the Capitol. While Trump Hotel was situated in the no-man's land of Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and The Hill, Butterworth's is a stone's throw from the hallowed halls of Congress. A MAGA hat was a rare site in DC from 2016-2020, but now I see the red hats as commonly as maroon Commanders caps. The accumulation of candle wax suggests that even a new paradigm has its roots in the Old World.
It was uncommon to see anyone other than a Trump-adjacent individual at Trump hotel, but Butterworth's is regularly populated by hill staffers on both side of the political spectrum, tourists, and Trumpers alike. As MAGA becomes mainstream, they no longer hide away at an ostentatiously expensive vault like Trump Hotel. They hang out at the center of DC's social scene at a place that may host an event for a progressive think tank one day, and an America first one the next. It would have been inconceivable to DC insiders that Trump would ever make his way back into the seat of power as the tear gas and pepper spray was settling on January 6, 2021. From the ashen residue of discharged fire extinguishers expended inside the Rotunda, I had an inkling that Trump’s movement would rise again.
With snot on my face and pepper spray still burning my eyes, I knew that January 6 definitely a riot, but not the nail in the coffin Insurrection that cable news hosts hoped it would be.
When I pitched my recent book, RIOT DIET, to publishers, I was told by both Conservative and Progressive imprints that Trump would never make it through the primaries, let alone win a second term. They told me Trump as “old news.” Yet Trump has proven the publishers I spoke to—as well as the entire establishment—wrong with a historic popular-vote victory on the fifth of November, 2024. That brings us to the unexpected home base for the populist return to Washington. The restaurant was opened in 2024 and its proximity to Capitol Hill as well as the fact that it is one of the few District locations with owners that accommodate anything tangentially associated with the Orange Man's allies. It is no surprise because DC is anything but a Republican stronghold, let alone a MAGA one. But as the city seems to be engrossed in a battle between ideas, the difference this time is that the MAGA coalition seems to be winning. Butterworth's isn't an exorbitant display of bawdy tastelessness (while Trump Hotel had a magnificent interior, the fake antique chairs and the knockoff Persian carpets would never be appreciated by so-called high society). It has real antiques, weathered mirrors imported from France, handmade stained glass, and—though my McGinniss name makes me impartial—a vintage photo of Queen Elizabeth II. That returns us back to the original question after Trump Hotel was bought up by the big boys and his administration is back to DC for MAGA 2.0. Where can Trump supporters enjoy a pint or a bite in a city that voted Democrat in every election since 1964? Does populism have a place in DC? Well, considering I ran into the January 6 Lectern Guy at this joint, I would say yes.
The machinations of America’s populist future will likely take hold among late empire French antiques, old murky mirrors and beneath a portrait of the Queen—with one foot in the Old World and another in the New. Time will tell whether or not Trump will bring about his promised "Golden Age,” but having been in Washington for both of his terms I can say there is something different in the air this time around. Bart Hutchins, the owner of Butterworth’s, noted the transition of MAGA from outsiders to the stewards of culture, “When you’re an outsider, no one cares what you’re doing. But when you’re in power, all of a sudden everyone’s watching and go ‘oh that’s the wine to drink, that’s the food to eat, that’s how you act in public.’ And we really gotta learn how to do that.” 22-year-old Conservative activist CJ Pearson called the joint, “the watering hole for the MAGA movement.” His younger demographic also speaks to many of the youthful voters who may not have voted at all were it not for Trump's appeal to new media personalities like Theo Von and Joe Rogan, "During the first administration I was still learning how to drive so I didn't spend too much time at the Trump Hotel now Waldorf... So for me living in DC now being here, it's so cool to see what they've been able to build here." When you ask yourself the question of why it is that the ideological left occupies nearly every corner of this city and yet there is no way for the new right to make inroads, perhaps there is an opportunity for the red hats to find their home at a place with not only some class, but also one where people don't posture from a distance. A bar where there beers are decently affordable, and where one can't hide behind their titles or a VIP section roped off from the rest of the bar. The mere fact that such a place exists is evidence of the fact that the tides are turning here in our nation’s capital.
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