A swampy symbol of Trump's denial, deflection, deceit and 'dirty pool' [View all]
If you’re looking for the perfect metaphor for Trump’s “presidency” – I’m not first to say it – it’s his Reflecting Pool debacle. From start to whatever the finish will be, it has it all: hubris, incompetence, insider graft, lying, blaming. Some things are emblematic enough that they bear repeating; trying, futile as it may be, to bring sight to the unseeing. Yes, it seems trivial compared to his lie-based, ill-conceived, vanity-motivated Iran war; nor has it, like the war, cost America and the world countless billions, jobs, and security. Unlike the war, it hasn’t left the terrorist nation of Iran in a stronger position than it was before his senseless embarkation. What it has done is provide shorthand for the dark, fibrillating heart of Trumpism.
It began, predictable as sunrise does the day, with Trump bragging that he alone had the know-how to “fix” the Reflecting Pool, adding that Presidents Biden and Obama, of whom his jealousy is boundless, are responsible for everything wrong with the pool; as he has with everything wrong in the world he created. Then, as with climate change and vaccines, he ignored the science of adding a dark, heat-absorbing base beneath a primordial soup. Which rejects evolution and climate change, as well. Because of course.
It’s US law that government contracts can only be no-bid when there’s an emergency. But he handed one out, to the tune of millions, when no emergency exists. To a donor. Which demands something that’s lately become rare here: a link. Voters should know who the guy is. Gaze upon him. Read of his Trump-approved background: (tinyurl.com/guy4trump)
Trump promised it’d cost less than two million (for what is Trump if not one who keeps promises?) It’s heading toward fifteen. So far. People who know things, a disqualification for anyone in Trump’s employ, predicted the outcome: water coming raw from the Tidal Basin, heated perfectly to brew algae already contained in that water, would produce blooms in amounts, as Trump likes to say, “never seen.” Then Iranesque damage-control escalation: in this case, teams of workers dumping hydrogen peroxide into the pool to kill the organisms (also, it appears, ducks). Which lifted the blue stuff off the surfaces of the pool.
https://www.heraldnet.com/2026/06/26/schwab-a-swampy-symbol-of-trumps-denial-deflection-deceit-and-dirty-pool/
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