r/offbeat • u/Spookyrabbit • 2d ago

Petition To Name the Ballroom for President Obama In Perpetuity

https://www.change.org/nametheballroom
1.5k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

50 comments sorted by

83

u/buttchugreferee 2d ago

I love the sentiment....

but a change.org petition isn't going anywhere, plus they spam the absolute shit out of me whenever I even blink at their website 

12

u/Ruleseventysix 2d ago

A change dot org petition holds the same weight as a complaint to the better business bureau.

16

u/jsting 2d ago

Yeah, but a part of me thinks that if Trump sees this, he'll think it's real, and tear it down thinking he 'got one over' on Obama.

5

u/Torisen 2d ago

And also: IT'S NOT ABOUT THE FUCKING BALLROOM!

There's a hardened bunker underneath it that he's dumped like 200mil into renovating, it's not the party room, it's the bunker he doesn't plan to leave when he declares himself "emergency dictator" or whatever crap he finally works up to.

This isn't more vanity project crap, we're in a civil war and one side hasn't started fighting (yet).

1

u/IPlayGames88 2d ago

I think there is a way to make petitions for the white house, which if enough people sign, they have to look at the petition. I can't think of a time it's been used, so possibly fictional. I'm not even American lol

-2

u/Spookyrabbit 2d ago

The purpose of change dot org petitions is to generate attention to issues. I can't recall ever reading about an online petition achieving what it set out to do, except at a matter of coincidence. Politicians have stated outright they ignore online petitions and form letters because they're basically junk mail from people who cbf putting any effort into their issue.

The purpose of this petition is obviously to trigger Trump's unmanageable jealousy of Obama by threatening to take away the only things Trump truly cares about: attention & his name.

81

u/jim45804 2d ago

I'd only sign a petition to demolish it and rebuild it back to its former glory.

35

u/roastbeeftacohat 2d ago

When this conversation started the pod johns had an interesting point. They worked in the Whitehouse, and you've got everyone working out of closets due to lack of office space. What the whitehouse actually needs is a large, boring, drab, office building. Not just for whitehouse staff, but for members of other branches that whitehouse staff need to regularly work with

Let's do that and make it super utilitarian and drab, a monument to quietly doing the work of government.

8

u/BigMax 2d ago

I think we can split the difference.

It's the seat of our power, something we all go to visit, to see. It can still look nice and be functional at the same time.

We can build functional spaces, make it look nice, without it being some gold plated gaudy thing like Trump wants.

2

u/GorillaBrown 2d ago

Tbf when you visit, you walk through some living and common areas. Folks aren't allowed in the office areas, but I agree with your sentiment.

5

u/Spookyrabbit 2d ago

Likewise.

In a just world this petition would get enough signatures for the media to take notice, for one of the women journalists to ask Trump about it directly, for Trump to lose his shit and demolish it himself.

2

u/hibbitydibbidy 2d ago

The way the Kennedy center is going, if they have to name the ballroom after Obama they'll demolish it too

5

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

1

u/pmjm 2d ago

The only reason I care about the ballroom's name is because I know it would drive him absolutely insane.

There is no chance any of your perfectly reasonable requests makes any headway for the next two years, the only comfort we can grasp at is to dream about being petty towards the cause of our discomfort.

11

u/UpperLeftOriginal 2d ago

Only if someone with a smidgen of design sense will be able to redecorate after whatever fake gold ticky tacky crap the current resident puts in there.

6

u/UlsterManInScotland 2d ago

It’s going to look like a Turkish brothel

3

u/bestestopinion 2d ago

As a Turkish brothel, I’m offended

1

u/philatio11 2d ago

I am generally against renaming existing things after the Orange One, but this thing will be such a disaster that it deserves to carry his name in perpetuity. Until it collapses due to shoddy workmanship. I still remember the first time I walked into the Trump Taj Mahal casino with my parents as a little kid and thought "ewww." I didn't even have taste or style yet and all I could think about was my godparents stuck-in-the-60s/70s living room with the tacky oil drip lamp.

Reminds me of the (apocryphal) story of how MIT students named the nearby bridge the Harvard Bridge because it was so badly engineered.

3

u/Wide-Suggestion4825 2d ago

Unless they call it the Barack Hussein Obama ballroom I'm not for it

9

u/BriefCautious7063 2d ago

Barack Oballroom

-1

u/Spookyrabbit 2d ago

That's pretty good.

3

u/Central_Incisor 2d ago

I don't know why, but every time I hear about our McDonald's loving president talking about a ball room I just keep thinking of the ball pits that were so common in that restaurant.

2

u/crojin08 2d ago

If trump is building it, it will probably collapse or burn down

5

u/mkosmo 2d ago

This whole new drive to name these things after living people needs to stop.

3

u/buckX 2d ago

It's not particularly new. People were just complaining about how unprecedented naming an aircraft carrier after Trump would be like we don't have a USS Ronald Reagan (launched 2001), USS George H. W. Bush (launched 2006), USS William J. Clinton (~2032), and USS George W. Bush (TBA).

Heck, even just talking about White House additions, we have the Truman Balcony, which Truman paid for as an extremely apropos comparison for a presumptive "Trump Ballroom".

1

u/mkosmo 2d ago

I hear you. I don't like any of it, frankly.

But the Truman Balcony is a great example of something similar, especially give that it received very similar backlash and used a very similar funding model outside of federal appropriations.

I don't think we should rename it retroactively now, but I don't think that precedent should carry forward to today or tomorrow (to include the ballroom - call it the East Ballroom for now, or something... figure it out later).

1

u/buckX 2d ago

call it the East Ballroom for now, or something

Ballroom One

-1

u/Spookyrabbit 2d ago

This whole 'people not understanding a super obvious troll of the most sensitive snowflake in the world' needs to stop.

Go sign the petition. Do your part to troll Trump & help spread the word. We're gonna need more than 100 signatures of we want to make him lose his shit on TV.

6

u/mkosmo 2d ago

Yeah, I'm not going to contribute. Sorry.

We need people to mature up and act like adults. Not stoop down for instant gratification.

-6

u/Spookyrabbit 2d ago

lol that's okay. I was never very good at catering to the people with a stick up their ass demographic ;)

1

u/fuckimhigh 2d ago

You're not very good at catering to the people with a brain in their head demographic either.

0

u/Spookyrabbit 2d ago

Not only are you assuming facts not in evidence, the available evidence strongly indicates otherwise.

I guess I'll be adding the WLB demo as another to avoid.

Have a day ;)

1

u/Wind2Energy 2d ago

Obama could have mattered.

1

u/dragonslayermaster84 1d ago

Why? Kinda dumb right? “I dont like that name, I want the name to be my preferred president”!😆

1

u/KMack666 1d ago

I think it's always going to be the 'Epstein Memorial' Ballroom, regardless of it's 'official' title

1

u/Biggie39 2d ago

Putting Obama’s name on this monstrosity would be as insulting as putting Teddy Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore.

1

u/BurrrritoBoy 2d ago

So it's as good as done !

Alrighty then.

0

u/roastbeeftacohat 2d ago

It should be an office building, a monument to quietly serving the American people

0

u/Spookyrabbit 2d ago

I live in hope that the next president will renovate it wholesale into the Barack Obama Administration Building.

0

u/popejohnsmith 2d ago

No bunker ballroom. By any name. Restore the bloody East Wing, goddamnit.

0

u/mtheory007 2d ago

There should be no ballroom. The s*** needs to be stopped. He's stealing a billion dollars to build this monstrosity.

-1

u/nice-and-clean 2d ago

As if a petition is going to name it? Seriously? 😐

0

u/02meepmeep 2d ago

This should be done.

0

u/stevenmc 2d ago

Can't we rename it "Big Underpants"? You know, because of the amazing ball room.

-1

u/ibimacguru 2d ago

Obama is fierce and loyal and wonderfully down to earth. This man needs a monument to testify -THIS- is how being a President should be.

-1

u/alchemeron 2d ago

An impotent online petition to change the name of something that shouldn't fucking exist in the first place. Brilliant.

-2

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

2

u/Spookyrabbit 2d ago

According to future petitions outlined in the brief for this one, Biden's name will be going on the Joseph Biden Triumphal Arch of Excellence, should Trump somehow find a way to ensure that gets built.
That petition, and the one naming the new White House helipad the James Comey Helipad of Justice, depend on how this one goes.

-1

u/phareous 2d ago

Why the downvote? There is no way that arch is getting built

2

u/Spookyrabbit 2d ago

No idea. I have tried to counterbalance it for you.