The Patriot Post® · Reflecting America: A Pool, a Nation, and an Ideological Chasm
By Joshua Arnold
Downtown Washington, D.C. is brimming with construction in preparation for celebrations of the nation’s 250th birthday next month, but not everyone is happy to join the party. In recent weeks, the National Park Service (NPS) has encountered numerous incidents of petty sabotage, where Grinch-like opponents of President Trump’s program have been caught ruining or trying to ruin the preparations.
One iconic location under assault is the recently refurbished reflecting pool, stretching between the Lincoln Memorial and the WWII Memorial on the National Mall. U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said that several vandals have been caught and will face charges for trying to ruin the pool ahead of the 250th celebration.
The most recent figure arrested was former U.S. Olympian David Hearn, who represented the U.S. in a canoe in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 Olympics. More recently, Hearn was arrested for vandalizing the pool after he was seen reaching into the pool during a bike ride. A nearby journalist said that he also grabbed a hose NPS workers were using to clear away algae, and Hearn maintains he only stopped to examine the new coating. If the details of Hearn’s specific situation remain murky, the incident highlights the charged atmosphere surrounding the pool.
Before this year, the reflecting pool sat in need of substantial renovation. Under President Obama, the federal government spent $30 million renovating the pool, then more responding to an algae outbreak. In 2015-2016, more repairs were needed after separate construction damaged the eastern end. In 2017, the pool had to be drained due to a parasitic infection harming ducks. The pool lay mostly empty for years — a concrete eyesore amid otherwise magnificent scenery. By this spring, the pool was full of algae, suffered from leaks, and needed a cosmetic upgrade.
Earlier this spring, President Trump launched a project to renovate the Reflecting Pool at a fraction of the cost of original estimates and coat it with a blue sealant to enhance its reflective quality. On May 16, Trump posted a preview of the project, showing off its brilliant reflective potential. We “[h]ave substantially upgraded construction materials, including surface qualities, sandblasting granite, and exterior stone and walkways,” Trump wrote. “I’ve made this a much larger job than originally contemplated for purposes of Beauty, and a much longer life. Also, went to a higher quality sealer with more reflectivity.”
The renovations to the Reflecting Pool came as part of a concerted effort by President Trump to beautify Washington, D.C. before the 250th festivities. On June 19, he declared that his administration had “cleaned, renovated, and beautified over 45 Monuments and Memorials, 28 Statues, and 22 Fountains in Washington, D.C.” Another notable example was the Columbus Fountain outside of D.C.‘s Union Station, an imposing marble structure that fell into disarray and had not shed a drop of water since 2007 — thereby inviting a notorious homeless encampment to gather around it — until the Trump administration completely refurbished the site this year.
On June 6, Trump announced that the Reflecting Pool project was completed before its July 4 deadline at a cost of $14.8 million.
Then came the problems. Within days, algal blooms had sullied the pool’s clarity. (This may have been an inevitable side effect of renovating a large, shallow body of warm water, as the same algae problem followed Obama’s renovation attempt — possibly from residual algae left over in pipes.)
The algae problem prompted mockery from those who refused to acknowledge that Trump could do anything right. But on the whole, pool algae is a manageable problem, and the NPS is treating it with chemicals, ozone nanobubbles, and a vacuum system with “no harmful side effects to marine life or to the environment,” NPS said. “The algae is 75% gone, and the condition will soon be completely remedied,” Trump wrote Friday.
The more concerning issue was vandalism. President Trump has repeatedly alleged that protestors have attacked the pool, dumping in chemicals (presumably to aid the spread of algae) and trying to tear off the pool’s blue coating. “The area that was vandalized, fortunately, is just a small area of damage, and will be fixed early next week,” Trump said.
Trump compared the pool vandalism to an attempt to deface the nearby grass of the National Mall, where someone had appeared to sketch out a giant “86 47” (taken as code for: “get rid of the 47th president”) with grass killer. “Just like three days ago, they destroyed the grass outside of the Pool, they’ve also done everything possible to hurt the inside surface that was just installed,” he said. “No different than the chemicals that were used on the National Mall, they used something similar in the Reflecting Pool to try to destroy and demean our beautiful work.”
Publicly available details on who (and how many people) did what to the Reflecting Pool remain sparse, and such charges must work out through the legal system. What is certain, however, is that a committed cast of anti-Trumpers have decided that even his attempt to beautify the nation’s capital must be opposed. Hence, endless mockery of the project, a lawsuit to block construction, and even “pro-algae” protestors appearing beside the Reflecting Pool with signs that read, “Team Algae.”
If ever there was a movement that stood for Making America Ugly Again, pro-algae protestors are it.
The most serious challenge to the project came from a lawsuit filed by the Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), claiming that “The vivid blue coating will fundamentally alter the visual and experiential character of the pool and the broader Lincoln Memorial Grounds landscape.” Its “American flag blue” color would “cause the pool to resemble a large swimming pool rather than the reflective civic landscape it was designed to be, distorting the experience of the site for the millions of visitors who come to it each year,” the lawsuit alleged.
As arguments go, the aesthetic point here is rather weak. The “swimming pool” dig is merely name-calling with no basis in reality, and the basic complaint is that Trump’s renovation would make the pool brilliant in the eyes of attendant visitors instead of what it has been for years — dingy. To this argument, the Trump administration could simply argue, “Yes, that’s the whole point and aim of a successful renovation.”
In the event, the Trump administration simply finished its work on the Reflecting Pool before a judge ever decided what to do with the lawsuit.
“The best argument made was that Trump had bypassed the usual channels before moving ahead with his plan. But, in this case, that was likely a net plus,” argued the National Review editors, a bunch usually scrupulous about following proper procedures. “It is not at all clear that there were any legal obstacles to the White House’s decision to ignore the usual review process, and, given that the usual reviewers are a bunch of pretentious naysayers, their involvement would most likely have served no purpose beyond slowing the restoration down.”
In a way, the battle over the Reflecting Pool reflects a battle between two different visions of America. Whatever Trump’s vices and failures, he genuinely believes that America is (or should be) a great nation, and that that greatness should be reflected and memorialized in magnificent architecture, landscaping, and statuary. Conveniently, this attitude was shared by former generations who shaped the nation’s capital, and who filled it with magnificent architecture, landscaping, and statuary. All Trump had to do was give it a little glow-up — mostly with a pressure washer.
Trump’s fight to make D.C. beautiful again has not attracted as many adversaries as usual, but it has attracted some, and these are compelled to defend the position that America is (and should remain) ugly. Not all those arrayed against Trump would describe their position this way; some are simply reflexively opposing Trump, while others are applying malformed proceduralism. Whatever the motive, the upshot is that they are opposing attempts to make America beautiful; if red tape is their weapon of choice, that is its own commentary.
Ascribing to Trump’s opponents a desire for America to be ugly is not a straw man argument to excuse Trump when he steamrolls norms (which is not clearly happening here). Rather, it is the natural outworking of progressive (Marxist) ideology. If America is a nation built on racism, misogyny, and other forms of oppression, then America is ugly to the core. Dressing this evil up in beautiful statues and architecture is therefore wrong, and these monuments to American greatness become so many “whitewashed tombs” (Matthew 23:37). If America is evil, then only a hypocrite would make it beautiful.
But the negative critical narrative is not the only way to understand America. For centuries, Americans informed by a Christian worldview have understood that this country is far from perfect, but that its freedom and popular accountability compare favorably with most other governmental systems. Since the founding, Americans have striven toward a “more perfect union,” and every step of progress involves greater recognition and respect for the image of God in man, not less.
This herculean and halting effort to achieve “liberty and justice for all” is now reaching its 250th anniversary, despite dozens of occasions when one misstep may have doomed the entire enterprise. Today, America stands as a monument of liberty, prosperity, and — on the whole — justice in a world dominated by oppressive dictators. From marble facades to long reflecting pools, the monuments to that effort once were glorious, and they can be again.
Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.
This article originally appeared here.