Greg Olear delivers a jarring, historically grounded indictment of modern political decadence by reframing a recent White House-adjacent gala not as a Great Gatsby homage, but as a revival of Stanford White's predatory legacy. By juxtaposing the 1906 murder trial of architect Stanford White with contemporary policy decisions that endanger vulnerable populations, Olear forces a confrontation between the aesthetics of wealth and the reality of human cost. This is not merely a history lesson; it is a moral audit of the current executive branch's indifference to suffering, wrapped in the glitter of a Gatsby costume party.
The Architect of Depravity
Olear begins by dismantling the popular narrative of Stanford White, the celebrated architect of McKim, Mead & White, revealing him as a "serial sexual predator" who operated with impunity for decades. He writes, "He was especially well connected in the world of fashion and theater. When he felt like it, he would help the girls who were his victims land modeling deals or plum roles in Broadway shows." This detail is crucial; it establishes a pattern of using institutional power and professional gatekeeping to facilitate abuse, a dynamic that resonates uncomfortably with modern discussions of workplace harassment and influence peddling.
The author paints a vivid, disturbing picture of White's private world, noting that "one of the vast rooms was painted dark green: walls, floor, ceiling. From the extravagantly high ceiling hung a swing, a child's swing, the kind you see at a playground, but with a seat made of soft red velvet." Olear uses this specific imagery to anchor the horror of White's actions, arguing that the "red velvet swing" became a symbol of the architect's ability to lure victims into a false sense of security. The framing is effective because it moves beyond abstract accusations to concrete, sensory details that expose the calculated nature of the predation.
"The process of seduction was a major feature of his obsession with sex, and it was an inexorable kind of seduction which moved into the lives of very young women, sometimes barely pubescent girls, in fragile social and financial situations."
Olear draws a direct line from White's behavior to the modern era, stating that "a full century before another man of wealth and mystery came along—also a sick pedophile with a swing in his Manhattan mansion! —there was Stanford White." While the comparison to Jeffrey Epstein is explicit and necessary given the context of recent scandals, the author's deeper point is about the structural enablers who allowed such behavior to flourish. He notes that "those in the know were also complicit, and thus had no great urge to spill the beans; those who suspected could only go on intuition and rumor—and it was easier to forget about it than to call him out." This observation about collective silence in the face of elite misconduct is the piece's most potent historical parallel.
The Gatsby Delusion
The commentary shifts sharply to critique the recent celebration at the Palm Beach club, which the author argues was misidentified by the media as a "Great Gatsby party." Olear writes, "That was not a Gatsby party!" He contends that F. Scott Fitzgerald's character Jay Gatsby, despite his flaws, was driven by a romantic, albeit delusional, hope to win back a lost love. In contrast, the current administration's festivities are described as having no such redeeming narrative. "Gatsby only threw his extravagant parties... in the hopes of luring the love of his life into his orbit... Trump would never do such a thing!" Olear argues that the modern iteration of wealth display lacks even the tragic romanticism of the fictional character, replacing it with pure nihilism.
The author leverages the literary analysis to critique the current political climate, asserting that "Our current president is a Jay Gatsby gone bad; he apprenticed at the foot of his own mobbed-up Meyer Wolfshiem, Roy Cohn; the Cabinet is littered with abusive, white supremacist Tom Buchanans." This literary mapping serves to humanize the abstract political failures by grounding them in recognizable character archetypes. However, critics might note that equating complex political figures with fictional characters can sometimes oversimplify the nuances of policy and governance. Yet, Olear's point is not a biographical study but a moral one: the "carelessness" of the elite remains constant.
He quotes Fitzgerald directly to drive this home: "They were careless people…they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made." Olear applies this quote to the administration's decision to let SNAP benefits expire while hosting a lavish party, calling it "a giant FUCK YOU to the millions of Americans being kicked off SNAP." The juxtaposition of the party's "flapper get-ups" with the starvation of the poor creates a stark moral dissonance that the author refuses to let the reader ignore.
The Body Count of Carelessness
The piece culminates in a harrowing accounting of the human cost associated with the administration's policies, moving from the metaphorical to the literal. Olear writes, "A little party never killed anyone, sure, but a big party, the Republican Party, has indubitably killed hundreds of thousands of people—and it's just getting warmed up." He proceeds to list specific policy outcomes—pandemic mismanagement, cuts to USAID, restrictive abortion laws, and gun violence—attributing them directly to the political ideology of the current leadership.
This section is the most aggressive in the piece, blending historical narrative with contemporary political critique. Olear connects the "I Could Love a Million Girls" song from the musical White attended before his death to the current administration's impact, stating, "'I Could Love a Million Girls?' More like, 'I Could Claim a Million Lives.'" The rhetorical shift from the romantic to the fatalistic is jarring, but it serves the author's purpose of stripping away the glamour of the elite to reveal the consequences of their actions.
"It was not revelry, it was not frolic, it was not fun. It was a sadistic flaunting of bloated wealth and egregious excess—a giant FUCK YOU to the millions of Americans being kicked off SNAP, and to anyone with a functional soul."
Olear acknowledges the historical irony that both Gatsby and White met violent ends, noting that "One thing that Jay Gatsby and Stanford White had in common is that they were both shot dead by jealous, vengeful, and mentally unstable husbands." However, he leaves the reader with the lingering thought that while the architects of these tragedies may die, the systems they built often endure. The comparison to the "Trial of the Century" in 1906 serves as a warning that the public's attention span is short, and that the "massive press coverage" of today may eventually fade, allowing the underlying corruption to continue.
Bottom Line
Greg Olear's strongest move is refusing to let the "Gatsby" label stand as a harmless aesthetic choice, exposing it instead as a mask for the Stanford White archetype of predatory, unchecked power. The piece's greatest vulnerability lies in its conflation of historical tragedy with current political strategy, which may alienate readers seeking a more nuanced policy analysis, but the moral clarity of the argument is undeniable. As the public moves past the initial shock of the scandal, the real test will be whether the "carelessness" Olear describes is met with the same accountability that eventually caught Stanford White, or if the cycle of impunity continues unbroken.