“Friends, the Republic Was Never Supposed to Sparkle. These are spiritually confusing times for True Christians.
For generations, Washington, D.C. looked exactly the way government oughta look: restrained, dusty, mildly constipated, and faintly embarrassed to exist at all. Marble columns stood around like Baptist ushers waiting to tackle somebody for chewing gum near the Book of Romans. The Capitol dome loomed overhead like a bald Presbyterian librarian silently judging your grammar, your hemline, and your cholesterol simultaneously.
The whole city smelled like parchment, radiator heat, dead presidents, and soup crackers dissolved in weak broth.
And that was proper.
Because Proverbs 16:18 warns us plainly:
“Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
The old republic understood this. The architecture itself whispered humility. It said:
“Please lower your voice near the Constitution.”
It said:
“Maybe don’t gold-plate every toilet in sight like an Egyptian casino pharaoh.”
It said:
“Government works for the people, not whichever millionaire just discovered bronzer and Roman columns during a divorce.”
But clearly it was the Democrats who flung open the gates of Babylon and unleashed modern political television culture upon the nation like a demonic leaf blower packed with cocaine residue and expired casino shrimp.
Now Washington is transforming into a flaming carnival of ego, chandeliers, patriotic branding, and decorative nonsense. Suddenly everybody wants giant arches, colossal ballrooms, ceremonial corridors, gold trim, and reflecting pools polished so brightly they resemble the waiting room of a luxury Botox clinic where emotional-support peacocks serve cucumber water to hedge-fund managers.
The capital city increasingly looks less like the seat of a republic and more like what happens when a cruise-ship buffet supervisor inherits the Roman Empire during a concussion.
And naturally the Democrats accuse good God-fearing Republicans of being judgmental for noticing the smoke while the curtains burn behind them.
Now friends, Scripture repeatedly warns against vanity and false grandeur. Ecclesiastes tells us:
“All was vanity and vexation of spirit.”
But vanity is precisely what empires adore.
That is why tyrants always build gigantic nonsense.
Hitler and Albert Speer dreamed of Germania — a capital city designed less for human beings than for intimidation. Endless boulevards. Massive arches. Buildings so grotesquely oversized they looked like giants ordered office parks during a methamphetamine relapse.
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The architecture screamed:
“YOU ARE SMALL.”
“POWER IS ETERNAL.”
“NOW SHUFFLE FORWARD, YOU SWEATY TAXPAYING MEAT PUPPET.”
Because worldly power, once it stops fearing God, immediately develops an erotic attachment to marble doodads.
Tyrants don’t care about plumbing.
They don’t care about practicality.
Practicality is for engineers, grandmothers, and heavyset dads labeling storage bins in garages.
Tyrants want spectacle.
They want peasants feeling like dehydrated ants hauling breadcrumbs through cathedrals while military music bellows in the background like constipated elephants trapped inside a tuba factory.
And modern liberalism absolutely adores this kind of theatrical nonsense because today’s Democrats are basically pagan Rome with reusable grocery bags and sensitivity workshops.
Now this proposed “Independence Arch” sounds less like a monument and more like a direct-to-video Steven Seagal movie sold beside truck-stop fireworks and novelty beef jerky.
A seven-hundred-foot patriotic stone donut with bald eagles exploding off the sides while Lee Greenwood screams through industrial fog machines and a veteran named Dale launches hot dogs at tourists from an air cannon.
And somehow everybody pretends this is dignity.
But every empire reaches the same conclusion eventually:
“If we build enough gigantic nonsense, maybe nobody will notice the bridges collapsing and the Treasury operating like a haunted Dave & Buster’s.”
Old Washington at least attempted republican restraint — mild embarrassment wrapped in limestone. The Capitol once had the emotional energy of a principal apologizing for interrupting lunch.
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Now every politician wants ballrooms the size of airport terminals where rich donors wobble beneath chandeliers larger than weather systems while pretending democracy remains healthy between bites of miniature crab cakes.
And Scripture warns us again in Matthew 6:19:
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth.”
Yet modern politics consists almost entirely of earthly treasure, earthly vanity, earthly branding, and earthly buffoonery wrapped in patriotic gift paper.
And remember this, friends:
Every luxury is spiritually suspicious.
If your chair reclines too far, Satan probably installed the hinges.
If your dessert has more than one layer, the Antichrist may already own stock in the bakery.
If your hotel lobby smells like eucalyptus and cucumber water, Revelation is warming up backstage.
That is why the GOP remains spiritually necessary despite its flaws.
Democrats worship comfort.
Republicans at least understand suffering.
Democrats offer therapy apps, oat milk, emotional wellness, and electric scooters.
Republicans offer diesel fumes, tariffs, hard pews, military flyovers, cholesterol, and chicken-fried steak dense enough to shorten the human lifespan exactly the way the Lord intended.
Because America was not built by emotionally hydrated people doing yoga beside wind chimes.
And now comes the White House ballroom obsession.
Of course there’s a ballroom obsession.
Every insecure political age eventually transforms government into theatrical waddling space for rich weirdos with television contracts and unresolved daddy issues. The executive mansion increasingly risks becoming a hybrid of Versailles, Caesar’s Palace, and a Dubai nightclub where even the bathroom attendant owns cufflinks worth more than Nebraska.
And once politicians stand near enough marble long enough, they begin speaking as though they personally invented thunder.
That’s why authoritarian architecture always includes gigantic staircases and endless ceremonial corridors. The buildings exist less for governing than for dramatic descending.
Every hallway says:
“Observe the Great Leader slowly approaching shrimp appetizers while patriotic horns blast like dying walruses beneath a thunderstorm.”
Then comes the war over art.
Stephen Colbert — the highest-rated man in late-night television — suddenly finds himself shown the door by CBS immediately after spending years poking the golden calf with a stick on national television. And apparently this was simply the appointed time for a billion-dollar corporation to look upon its most successful program and declare: “Enough prosperity. Enough ratings. This fellow must be launched into the outer darkness immediately.”
The Democrats certainly helped, of course. Satan always provides logistical support. Democrats spent decades teaching Americans to worship comfort, pleasure, self-esteem, oat milk, electric cars, and emotionally supportive furniture.
Artists irritate governments because artists refuse to clap on cue. They write operas about emotionally fragile parking attendants named Trevor. They create sculptures resembling microwave ovens suffering existential despair. They turn Nixon into a haunted zucchini.
This drives powerful people completely bananas. So governments always attempt the same thing:
Clean up the museums.
Sanitize history.
Pressure artists.
Spray patriotic Febreze over ambiguity until everything smells like a truck commercial narrated by a retired football coach.
The Soviets did it. The French did it. Modern politicians would absolutely do it too if they weren’t busy hosting symposiums about gluten sensitivity and emotional weather patterns. And the deeper danger here isn’t merely political. It’s spiritual vanity.
Cities become ego machines. Monuments stop serving citizens and begin serving mythology.
And now our once restrained capital city stands approximately one zoning variance away from unveiling a twelve-hundred-foot bronze statue called:
“THE DEALMAKER RISING UP THROUGH THE GOLDEN TOILET SEAT OF DESTINY.”
Tourists will gather beneath it eating fourteen-dollar pretzels while drones project bald eagles across the night sky and somebody named Brayden sells commemorative Freedom Nachos from a kiosk shaped like Mount Rushmore.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will still insist the true threat to civilization is plastic straws and pronouns.
Friends, remain vigilant.
Because 1 John 2:16 warns us:
“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father.”
Which means roughly half the modern capital city now qualifies as a Bible-study cautionary tale.
Reject worldly grandeur.
Reject decorative throw pillows.
Reject emotional wellness.
Reject hotel breakfasts containing sliced kiwi.
For narrow is the path to righteousness, and apparently it smells faintly of diesel fuel and untreated hypertension.
Amen.”
Brother Jasper Culpepper
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