What the Reflecting Pool Actually Reflects

Different types of government failures grab our imagination: cover-ups, tragedies, personal moral failings, and corruption all lend themselves to narratives that humans naturally relate to.

But failures that can be visualized are hard to beat. They tell their own story. That is why I think the Reflecting Pool has caught the public imagination. Endless images and memes of the degradation of the Pool have swept through social media. The stakes seem simultaneously low enough to laugh about, but significant enough to gin up outrage. It is simultaneously funny and symbolic.

It would take a whole other post to highlight the best jokes, but this is certainly my favorite.

That said, I think the Reflecting Pool debacle is mirroring different aspects of Trump’s failure to govern in a competent and accountable way. Here are some themes.

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1. From the party of Lincoln to the party of Trump

The Reflecting Pool can be considered an extension of the Lincoln Memorial. It was designed by the same architect, Henry Bacon, and completed in time for the dedication of the Memorial. Bacon designed it to connect America’s two greatest Presidents, Lincoln and Washington, using the pool to tie the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument.

Trump has made clear he is not repairing the Reflecting Pool, but making it his own, promising his vision will make it “the way it’s supposed to be. Much better than it ever was, actually.” The job of the reflecting pool is, well, to reflect its surrounds. It is not supposed be the defining feature, to grab the eye. Even Trump’s idealized and unrealized version of the Pool is a garish defilement of that purpose.

The Republican Party used to refer to itself as The Party of Lincoln. Whatever Lincoln stood for — his ending of slavery, civil war victory, personal integrity, vision and humility — seem distant. The Republican Party today is…