In the annals of Trump stupidity, the saga of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool may not be the most consequential.
But it symbolizes the way Trump's unique brand of ignorance, arrogance, and corruption pollutes everything he touches.
The President who promised to "drain the swamp" has, instead, misspent over $15 million of taxpayer money to create a literal one in the middle of Washington DC.
A humiliation so big you can see it from space
As with many renovation projects in and around the nation's capital, Trump went to great lengths to make himself the face of this ridiculous project, even bragging to reporters that "our pool" was so long it made massive erections like the Empire State Building look small.
To kick off the project, Trump said he had "a guy who's unbelievable at doing swimming pools" who could get it done in a couple of weeks for about "a million and a half dollars."
He promised us it "would look gorgeous" in the "American Flag Blue" color he had personally selected.
Instead, as Britain's Sky News reports, the project "has turned into a spectacular nonsense."
$15-million later, with the paint already peeling from the bottom and the algae blooming like never before, satellite images confirm what people on the ground have been saying this week: the pool now looks worse than ever.
A reflection of Trump's ignorance, arrogance, and corruption
From start to finish, the reflecting pool project was marked by the incompetence and bad science we expect from Trump and his administration. And, as usual, corruption played a central role in how it all played out.
As The New York Times revealed, Trump used the excuse that the "unusual and compelling urgency" of getting this done by July 4 required him to bypass standard regulatory procedures as he funneled millions of dollars to dubious firms known mainly for their history of greasing his palm.
Despite assuring us the job would cost less than $2 million, Trump awarded a $14.7 million contract to Virginia-based Atlantic Industrial Coatings and a $1.7 million contract to the aptly named Greenwater Services of Brookfield, Ohio. According to Trump's Interior Department, Greenwater "was selected because they had the expertise, work force and materials."
After the pool was drained, Trump drove a large motorcade across the pool's new coating to stage a photo op with workers, where he talked about how beautiful and clean the pool would soon be looking and lashed out at reporters who asked why he was so focused on the pool, given that he had recently started a war.
"Stable genius" Trump has been outsmarted again, this time by brainless algae
Despite Trump's grandiose plans to transform the "absolutely filthy," "dirty," and "disgusting looking" reflecting pool, the end result is that he has only made it more "slimy and stinky" than ever.
In a result that any biologist could have predicted, writes Maureen Dowd, the pool is now teeming with "trillions of microscopic organisms that suck up all the oxygen and endanger life around them."
Trump, naturally, is refusing to take responsibility for his fuckup, trying instead to blame the outcome on "vandalism."
The reality is Trump has once again prioritized optics over expertise, rewarded unqualified political allies, and run roughshod over the expert warnings and established processes that could have averted this humiliating disaster.
Trump has always been a special kind of stupid.
The reflecting pool is just one of the many problems he has left in his ignorant, arrogant, and corrupt wake.
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