The Reflecting Pool Controversy Is Absurd: Not Everything Trump Does Has to Be a Crisis

One must wonder whether President Trump’s least discriminating critics have ever read the fable of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” — or at least whether, if they have, they understood that it was not an advertisement in favor of unyielding panic. There are many, many things to criticize about our 45th and 47th president, but it cannot be the case that literally everything the man does is wrong. That even his decision to clear up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C., became an occasion for condemnation, anger, and charges of presidential impropriety suggests that, eleven years into his domination of American life, some among us have yet to internalize this fact.

Before Trump decided to clean it up, the Reflecting Pool was a mess. This was not unique in recent American history. Under President Obama, the federal government spent $30 million renovating the Reflecting Pool and then, almost immediately, spent yet more money to deal with an algae outbreak. Between 2015 and 2016, further repairs were made after the eastern end was damaged during construction. And, in 2017, the pool was completely drained in response to an outbreak of parasites that proved harmful to ducks. Nine years later, when Trump announced his more substantial makeover, the Reflecting Pool needed attention once again. It was full of algae; it had several leaks that needed attention; and, in the estimation of Trump’s advisers, the basin required repainting to enhance the water’s reflective effect.

As part of a broader attempt to beautify Washington, D.C., Trump signaled his intention to take on the project and, in so doing, provoked some wild reactions. A near-endless supply of “preservationists” told the newspapers that Trump’s planned changes to the basin-coating would make the pool look like a residential swimming pool, and thereby deprive us of our “our shared cultural landscape heritage”; a series of reflexive partisans insisted wildly that the attraction was fine as it was, despite the presence of algae that had turned the pool a ghastly greenish brown; and Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, took to sharing photographs of the in-progress project, alongside captions that implied that the mere existence of a temporary construction site represented a terminal failure of planning. (Quite how Newsom squares this position with California’s ongoing high-speed rail debacle, he has never explained.) The opposition was breathless, fevered, and typically extremely silly.

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. 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. Clearly, President Trump wanted the pool to be presentable in time for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations, and, clearly, the only way to achieve this was to cut out the network of groups, societies, fellowships, and other self-appointed arbiters of taste whose implacable opposition to him was foreordained. Absent those encumbrances, Trump put himself back into his old real estate developer mode, and got the thing done posthaste.

And it looks good! Which is why, despite the predictions of disaster, the new criticism of the cavilers is that the pool now looks exactly like it used to when it was working as designed. “The Reflecting Pool is full again — and looks almost the same,” the Washington Post declared this week. Which is exactly what one would want to say about a successful restoration project, is it not? (The “nearly” in that sentence, of course, is a grudging substitute for “better.”) A monument needed fixing, and it was fixed, quickly and competently. Not every development has to be a crisis. Not every moment calls for extended debate. Not all features of American life require interrogation by postmodernist bores. Sometimes, a pool is just a pool.

Source: The Reflecting Pool Controversy Is Absurd: Not Everything Trump Does Has to Be a Crisis | National Review

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1 Corinthians 15:3-4

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The Reflecting Pool Controversy Is Absurd: Not Everything Trump Does Has to Be a Crisis

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