The President has formally announced plans to build an arch much like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, on the other side of the bridge that connects the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington National Cemetery. This is officially in commemoration of the country’s 250th birthday, but when a reporter asked the President who the arch is for, he said, “Me.”
The arch is in addition, of course, to the $250 million ballroom that he is attaching to the White House. The President apparently feels our monuments aren’t dressed up enough, just as he feels all the 24 karat gold in the Oval Office (looking more and more like the Kremlin every day) provides an imperial gloss to match our national importance.
Yet that’s how much he doesn’t get it. The monuments in Washington DC are not grandiose; they are grand. And there’s a huge difference. Our national monuments are powerful but in their own way humble - the ideal we strove for before the Age of Trump.
The way it is now, from the Lincoln Memorial one has a straight view of Robert E. Lee’s mansion overlooking Arlington cemetery. Nothing could be a more powerful or poignant vision of the Civil War, reminding us of all the glories and tragedies of our past. With the new commemorative arch - signifying little more than the fantasies of an ill-read real estate mogul - we are literally obscuring the view of our own history.
In many ways, President Trump is clarifying the ideals of this country by the very act of trashing them. As the saying goes, “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.” Millions of Americans are waking up to the importance of their freedom for the first time, watching videos of ICE agents who were obviously told such freedoms no longer matter and they no longer need to respect them. Stephen Miller told Memphis police officers they were now “unleashed,” no longer bound by Constitutional guaranteers that every citizen would receive due process before the law.
If you’re infuriated, you have a right to be. But our fury needs to be alchemized into something positive now. We are learning from all of this. And one day, with God’s help, the nation will be better for it. Perhaps they’ll one day build a commemorative arch to the generation who stopped the madness.
Beautifully written. Horrifying to feel the truth of. Every chance I get, I reach out to some stranger and ask if they’re upset as I. Almost every time, the mask of indifference falls away and a real person appears, some measure of anguish and confusion on their face. Sometimes we hold hands. I believe the vast majority of Americans 1) just can’t believe this is happening, and 2) are just beginning to feel , as you say, what it means to have our freedom—newly beloved !!!- taken from us.
(I still have my 1985 Foundation for Inner Peace edition in my bedside table.)