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The color palette transition is perfect: green algae turned blue paint into a red-faced president. Welcome to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool saga, a perfect metaphor for Donald Trump’s laughable-were-it-not-catastrophic second presidential term.
In the pantheon of Trumpian sight gags, the reflecting pool fiasco is at best a pratfall. And, boy oh boy, are Americans having gallons of fun at Trump’s expense, creating everything from green algae-colored craft cocktails to Creature from the Green Lagoon swamp memes.
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What’s serious about this otherwise comical episode is how it reveals so many of Trump’s myriad flaws: His tendency to overpromise but underdeliver; his flaunting of scientific expertise in favor of gut decision making; his penchant for ignoring contracting protocols in favor of transparent graft; his corrosive, showy patriotism designed to glorify himself and “own” the libs; his wanton destruction of cherished federal symbols; and, of course, after the project quickly went south, his inevitable blame-shifting onto anyone — Barack Obama, especially — but himself.
The pool on the National Mall may not reflect blue as Donald Trump fervently hoped. But the renovation fiasco perfectly reflects the ignorant, bloviated patriotism of Trump 2.0.
Bungled boondoggling
Let’s start with the incompetence, graft, and crony capitalism, the holy trinity of Trump’s pre-presidential business model and current governing practices.
Trump is a bad businessman and dealmaker, but a worse public official. He knows little and cares even less about policy. He loves to make huge promises (“we’re signing a healthcare plan within two weeks”) and never follow through. And far too many of his decisions are guided by self-interest, immodesty, and his inveterate belief that his own genius transcends science and logic.
Little surprise, then, that Trump was confident that draining and painting the bottom of the reflecting pool “American flag blue” would magically make the water appear blue. He boasted that the new coating was thick, strong, flexible. Trump’s uncle taught at MIT, so clearly he understands science by dint of his superior genetics. Trump quickly took credit for the new pool, boasting on June 6 that the renovations were complete.
But as he failed to learn during the covid pandemic — one day the virus would just “go away” the Epidemiologist in Chief declared at least 40 times — biology and chemistry do not bend to his petty, misinformed whims. Algae blooms, accelerated by a hot Washington summer and the heat-absorbing blue polymer he installed, revolted. The water quickly turned green; crews scrambled to pump slimy water from the pool into the Washington sewer system.
Pouring hydrogen peroxide into the pool to kill the algae — another brilliant idea — only shredded the blue polymer on the reflec