What Lies Beneath
The Bottom Is Falling Out
For all of Donald Trump’s efforts to put his name on everything, reality has a way of leaving its own signature.
Last week, a major algae bloom turned much of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool green while the newly applied blue coating on the bottom of the pool began peeling away and floating to the surface. This is the same Reflecting Pool renovation that ended up costing taxpayers somewhere between $14 million and $15 million, despite originally being projected to cost less than $2 million.
The entire fiasco is a complete and utter disaster, and one that could have been avoided. Congress could have done its job and refused to allow a no bid contract to be awarded to one of Donald’s donors and cronies. A qualified firm with actual expertise could have been hired. Instead, taxpayers were left funding yet another lesson in what happens when loyalty is valued more highly than competence.
Over the weekend, Donald and his allies offered a variety of explanations for why the Reflecting Pool renovation had become such an embarrassment. We were told not to believe our own eyes. We were told it was not really that serious. We were assured the problem would be fixed. Most importantly, we were told it was not Donald’s fault.
That last part, of course, should surprise nobody.
Taking responsibility is not something Donald does. Rather than acknowledge flaws in the construction, the design, or the coating itself, regime officials settled on a different explanation. They blamed vandals. Not poor planning. Not incompetence. Not the predictable consequences of painting the bottom of a shallow pool a very dark shade of navy blue. Vandals.
According to the Trump regime, people were intentionally damaging the Reflecting Pool in an effort to undermine Donald. How anybody can say this with a straight face is beyond my comprehension.
The most notable citation involved three time Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who found himself accused of wrongdoing after putting his hand into the water.
This is what MSNBC reported:
President Trump this morning threatening years in jail for anyone who vandalizes the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool here in Washington…On Friday, U.S. Park Police arrested Olympic canoeist David Hearn, charging him with destruction of government property after he reached into the water to touch a piece of the peeling paint. In an interview with NBC News, Hearn denied doing any damage to the pool and said he just wanted to see what it felt like.
Apparently, renovating now means ruining something, and vandalism means pointing it out. It is a familiar pattern in the Trump era. When something falls apart because of corruption, incompetence, or poor planning, the people responsible rarely face scrutiny. Instead, attention shifts to whoever notices the failure first.
Over on Fox State TV, former prosecutor and current Donald loyalist Jeanine Pirro had plenty to say about the situation.
Fox Host: President Trump’s got a Crime Stoppers tip for you. He says lightweight ABC reporter Jonathan Karl was seen sticking his hand into the pool and trying to rip the rubber off the surface. Judge, is Jonathan Karl from ABC in trouble?
Pirro: Well, it depends. Anyone who was in a position of vandalizing or attempting to vandalize the Reflecting Pool will face the criminal justice system in D.C. Look, the president has made it a priority to make D.C. not only safe, but beautiful. And there are several citations that have been handed out to individuals and these are cases that will be prosecuted to the full extent.
Will they?
If we are truly interested in identifying who is responsible for the damage, perhaps we should begin with Donald himself. After all, he is responsible not only for the vandalism of the Reflecting Pool, but increasingly for the vandalism of Washington.
He is taking a wrecking ball to the East Wing. The Ellipse, where he held his grotesque and embarrassingly vulgar UFC spectacle on his birthday, looks more like a construction site than a historic civic space. The giant arch he wants to build threatens the balance of a city that was carefully designed over centuries. And then there is the gilded ballroom, a monument to excess that somehow grows more expensive every time somebody talks about it.
The deeper issue is not the architecture. It is the assumption that Donald has the right to do any of this.
He does not own the White House. He does not own the National Mall. He does not own our federal monuments. Yet he behaves as though America’s most treasured public spaces are simply extensions of one of his golf courses or resorts.
Why is he allowed to destroy the Rose Garden? Why is he allowed to gut the East Wing? Why is he allowed to erect monuments to his own ego while treating public property as if it belongs to him?
At some point, it has to stop.
The problem is that it is not stopping. It is getting worse.
And it is getting worse because Donald is getting worse.
On some level, Donald knows he is losing control. He is losing control of the narrative that he is competent. He is losing control of the narrative that he is strong. He is losing control of the narrative that he is in charge. None of those things has ever been true, but maintaining the illusion is becoming increasingly difficult.
As his incompetence becomes more visible, not just domestically but internationally, his need for distraction grows more desperate. We watched him unravel at the G7. We watched him become an embarrassment on the world stage. We watched other leaders treat him less like a statesman and more like a problem to be managed.
As that reality becomes harder to ignore, he will continue reaching for bigger spectacles, more expensive vanity projects, and increasingly absurd displays of self promotion. Every new distraction is designed to accomplish the same thing: convince people that he is not the corrupt, incompetent, pathetic loser he has always been.
The Reflecting Pool itself tells the story perfectly.
Donald hired a friend to renovate something that did not need renovating. He awarded that friend a no bid contract. Predictably, the budget exploded. A project originally expected to cost less than $2 million ballooned to nearly $15 million.
Then, because expertise and science are apparently optional in the Trump era, the bottom of a shallow pool was painted a dark navy blue.
The consequences were entirely predictable.
Dark surfaces absorb heat. Warm water encourages algae growth. The algae bloom that followed was not a mystery. It was not sabotage. It was not vandalism. It was basic science.
Once the algae became impossible to ignore, workers reportedly poured hundreds, perhaps thousands, of gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the pool to kill it. Unfortunately, hydrogen peroxide does not interact particularly well with the coating that had been applied to the bottom of the pool.
The paint began peeling.
Large sections detached and floated to the surface.
These were not acts of vandalism.
Unless, of course, we are willing to classify Donald and the people he hired as the vandals.
The result is that the Reflecting Pool will likely need to be drained and much of the project redone from the beginning. After spending nearly $15 million on a renovation that never needed to happen in the first place, taxpayers may now be forced to spend millions more correcting problems that were entirely predictable and completely avoidable.
There is another consequence that deserves attention as well.
Wildlife is beginning to suffer.
Ducks have reportedly died because of the chemicals being poured into the Reflecting Pool. Even nature is paying the price for this incompetence.
I saw somebody suggest that the Reflecting Pool has become a reflection of Donald’s soul, to the extent that he has one. There may be something to that observation.
But I think it has become something else as well.
It has become a metaphor for what this country is becoming under Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
A public institution that was functioning perfectly well before somebody decided to remake it for personal vanity. Millions spent unnecessarily. Experts ignored. Cronies rewarded. Public resources wasted. Reality denied. And when everything inevitably falls apart, blame shifted onto everyone except the people responsible.
Where is the Republican Party in all of this? Why is nobody willing to stop it?
The answer, unfortunately, is the same as it has always been. Donald is not the disease. He is a symptom of a much larger one. The Republican Party continues to enable these abuses because its members benefit from the same culture of grift, corruption, and self-interest that made Donald possible in the first place.
The Reflecting Pool was supposed to showcase Donald’s vision.
Instead, it revealed exactly what that vision has always been.
A movement that cares nothing about competence, stewardship, democracy, or public service. A movement dedicated primarily to enriching itself, rewarding its allies, and protecting its mythology at all costs.
The paint is peeling away.
The algae is impossible to ignore.
And the truth underneath is becoming harder and harder to hide.
One wonders how low the Trump administration can sink - literally. One wonders where is Congress, where is the oversite required for appropriating funds and for vetting plans for overhaul of the PEOPLE's monuments, buildings, parks in Washington D.C., funded by tax payers. This is another corrupt and catastrophic consequence of a rogue executive branch of government.
This is an eloquent work of art Mary! Do you think when he looks into the pool he finds his own reflection? Don’t think so!! How preposterous this pompous Buffoon is!!