JAKARTA - The White House is in tension. President Donald Trump's campaign team who are inside picking an alcohol party to ease the tension. There is no ban on such parties in the White House. But no previous president has hosted an event the way Trump's campaign team did. The party broke tradition.
A BBC report we quoted Wednesday, November 4, describes the president's staff and campaign officials staying there all night, when their boss's job is at stake. There's not much they can do except drink a lot of alcohol. Many.
Tuesday morning, November 3, women in the west wing of the White House show up for work. Their appearance was slightly different, mostly wearing sweaters, skirts, and red Republican stilettos. Everything looks alike: getting ready for the party.
All day and night they watched the elections proceed. When Trump outperformed his Democratic rival, Joe Biden in Florida, for example. Bright atmosphere. The desk in the office of Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany was filled with bottles of angor and bags of chips.
Despite seeing an important victory in Florida, tension was maintained. A staffer spoke to the BBC hugging a beer bottle with a partially chipped label on his arm. They are optimistic, although it is impossible to ignore nervousness.
"We feel very good," said the staff. He spoke of Florida showing Trump's superiority. "We are very optimistic."
Behind it, the volume of the television screen is increased. A television announcer delivers news that shakes the entire room. He alluded to "socialist anarchy" and made dire predictions about what would happen if the Democrats won.
A New York Post was lying on a bookshelf in the middle of the room that smelled of "Cozy Cashmere" --the waxy scent of pink in the room. Elsewhere in the building, a presidential re-election party is in progress.
Hundreds of people attended as an invitation. Some of the guests were draped in red silk, walking under the sky so clear you could see the hanging stars.
Break with tradition
The party broke tradition. There is no law prohibiting a president from holding a celebration in the White House on election night. However, no other president before Trump has hosted such a meeting.
Trump's predecessors, both Republicans and Democrats, have kept a strong distance between the campaign agenda and governance. The White House clearly belongs to the US government. And Trump's campaign agenda is clear beyond that. But, for Trump, the line between the two things is sometimes blurry.
Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama have used the White House as a backdrop in their political campaigns. However, both of them still make a difference between their campaign activities and their work as leaders of the country.
What Trump is doing is distinctly different. The boundaries seem to disappear. So many people are surprised by the choice of the party venue.
Gordon Adams, professor emeritus at American University described his experience of seeing the White House on election night with President Bill Clinton. Adams, who was then a senior White House official for the 1996 national security budget, spent election night with Clinton in Arkansas.
However, some time later he had time to fly back to Washington in a charter bus that dropped them off at the White House. "Very quiet," he said. "Nobody there celebrating."
So Adams responded to the party the Trump campaign team was throwing with the words, "That's annoying."
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