Judge rules Trump can begin paint tests on 19th-century building after preservation groups sued

Paint tests. That's the hill preservation groups picked to make their stand on, and a federal judge just told them to sit down. Not tear down the building, not gut the interior, not slap a coat of Mar-a-Lago gold on the facade. Testing. The kind of preliminary work any owner of an old building does before deciding how to actually treat it. Judge Friedrich looked at the request for an emergency order and said no, and it's hard to see how she could have said anything else.

The Eisenhower Executive Office Building is a genuine landmark, and nobody sane wants it treated carelessly. But there's a difference between vigilance and reflexive litigation, and Cultural Heritage Partners landed on the wrong side of that line by racing to court over paint swatches. This is what a lot of opposition to this administration looks like now: file first, figure out the actual harm later. Courts keep having to point out that an emergency injunction requires something closer to an emergency.

If there's a real fight to be had over how this building gets restored, that fight can happen once there's an actual plan on the table, with actual specifics to argue about. Right now there isn't one. There's a contractor with a paintbrush and a permit. Preservation groups do important work when they're focused on genuine threats to genuine landmarks, and they undercut that credibility every time they treat routine government business like a five-alarm fire. Save the outrage for when there's something to be outraged about.