If you wanted to make the argument that we are all living in a cruel simulation, the key evidence would be that the news continues to constantly give us absurd and frightening images of what life will be like in 2026. For example: The London School of Economics recently canceled a heat event because of a British heatwave warning issued by the UK Met Office.
Or, closer to home for Americans: Donald Trump, trying to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool for the 250th birthday of the United States and, instead, closing his own taxpayer-funded, over-budget goal of 14 million dollars through cracks and bursts, with green-green algae, and the possibility of killing ducks in the nation’s capital. One of the companies hired for the renovation is called Greenwater Services.
This is the kind of stuff an AI can spit out if you give the chatbot a lazy display of political satire. The wild spectacle has captured the attention of the nation, despite the fact that the Obama administration spent $34 million and 18 months to repair the dam with mixed results. Victory has come New York Times push notification status and become the grist of memes and online culture wars. Moreover, Poolgate seems to bother Trump more than previous fiascos, which is important to consider that he especially they are currently facing defeat in Iran, low poll numbers, and a bleak outlook for the midterms. He can’t stop posting about the ordeal on Social Truth, accusing anonymous vandals of the damage. In the White House America’s Greatest State Fair On Wednesday night, part of the Uhuru 250 celebrations, he spoke about the dam.
Trump’s Reflection Pool debate is, by definition, a national embarrassment. But America is no stranger to self-deprecation these days. (See: Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, Qatar luxury flight gift to Trump.) Why, then, is Trump so down about the Reflecting Pool? Why does it appear as of a permanent metaphor to an incompetent administration that can’t stop producing constant mysteries of its own incompetence?
Some of the reasons are obvious. As my colleague Jonathan Chait points out, uncontrolled algae blooms at the Lincoln Memorial are far less serious and, in fact, far more comical than, say, a war, a money laundering scheme, or the destruction of a wing of the White House. (One picture especially gets me: Four men in camo waders are in the pool. (The water, the color of pure Mountain dew, hangs in their laps as they slide down poles like cranberry farmers on a distant radioactive planet.) Recently, the saga has taken a turn for the worse: The National Park Service claims that the dam’s liner was cut with a sharp knife or razor blade earlier this month, causing damage to the dam’s foam. Trump has claimed that at least six people have been arrested and seven people cited for damaging the dam, and a spokesperson from the Interior Department told me today that “there have been seven arrests, seven government citations and 18 police reports filed.” Depending per yesterday’s MS Now report, public records show that only David Hearn, a former Olympic rower, was arrested. (Hearn said he was touching a floating piece of paint that had come out of the pond.)
The spectacle has also been downright silly, like when Park Service workers were photographed dumping gallon jugs of hydrogen peroxide into the pond one by one to kill the algae. But Poolgate is something more—a textbook example of how the Trump administration operates. It’s a way that one can explore the anatomy of Trump’s debates, which tend to unfold in (roughly) a 13-step process. The Reflecting Pool Theater isn’t quite done with this process yet, but I’d bet we’ll get there. It goes like this:
1. Create an unnecessary spectacle.
The Reflecting Pool—one of the National Mall’s landmarks—is a big, obvious symbol of America, and Donald Trump likes big, obvious symbols. Politics and policy are complicated. War is more difficult. But the sign is an arrangement. Clear that puddle, slap some paint on it—make sure you give it a symbolic name: the blue of the American flag—and with passion, you’ve made America great again. Additional points if President Obama took a similar action before you and you can claim you will do it cheaper, faster and better. On paper, it looks perfect.
2. Ignoring expertise.
According to CNN, in March, the administration reached out to Sika Corporation, the group that provided cement products and seals for the 2010 renovation. The administration set a strict schedule for the 250th anniversary and that the dam had to be painted blue. Sika said the project was “impossible.”
3. Bypass normal procedures.
Like New York Times reported Trump “handpicked” Atlantic Industrial Coatings for repairs, awarding the company what eventually became a $14.7 million no-bid contract with an apology “focused on emergency situations.” Trump later it is owed he did not know the company. An Interior Department spokesperson told me, “The contract and pricing reflect the effort needed to accelerate the schedule to complete the leak prevention project – more people, more equipment, more equipment and more hours before our 250.”
4. Announce victory very early (bonus if done by AI-slop post).
On May 1, Trump posted picture on Social Truth himself and other members of the Cabinet shirtless and swimming in the Reflecting Pool.
5. Use way more than rated.
“I’ve got a guy that I can’t believe doing street swimming pools,” Trump said at the start of the project. His initial estimate of the price tag was $1.5 million, which he revised the next day to $2 million. He estimated the renovation would last “30, 40, 50 years.” So far the project has cost about 16.4 million dollars.
6. Ignore the haters.
On June 3, as the project came in over budget, Trump invited reporters to the Oval Office to show off a piece of billboard that praised it. pool size. The description read, Our pool is Bigger than Skyscrapers.
7. Realize it’s not going well.
Algae blooms. Send in the hydrogen-peroxide brigade.
8. Bypass the usual procedures once again.
Like New York Times‘ David Fahrenthold reported, “The National Park Service avoided the competitive bidding process that is normally required” and instead awarded a non-bid contract to Greenwater Services to install a filtration system to support the algae. During the construction, Trump ordered the presidential motorcade to drive through the dam, shortly after the coating was applied, which has raised questions about whether the vehicle could damage the dam.
Taylor Rogers, a White House spokesman, told me by email that Greenwater’s contract was “awarded by the Department of the Interior” and that “the White House took no role in the selection process.” He called the assumption that the caravan affected the dam “dumb and baseless.” (In all my dealings with the current administration, never have its spokespersons responded or seemed concerned about my upcoming article.)
9. Conspiracy and sabotage.
On Monday, Trump met with reporters and claimed that vandals had put fertilizer in the pool’s water and also cut the seal: “I can’t help it if someone comes in with a knife and starts cutting it.”
10. Reclaim victory.
Trump said Wednesday that the dam “looks perfect already, but we’re fixing it.” Rogers told me that the pond is now “fully transparent and fully reflective.” The dam is currently surrounded by a fence and protected by the National Guard.
These frequent moves extend beyond Trump into the broader MAGA coalition. Recently, Jared Holt, a senior researcher at Open Measures, an organization that monitors online extremism, used an AI research tool to identify patterns in posts on Reflection Pool by right-wing accounts on a selection of right-wing social media platforms such as Social Truth. The tool divided more than 2,500 posts into three buckets:
Phase 1: Victory and Recovery
Phase 2: Defending the Project
Phase 3: War of Sabotage and Culture
“For MAGA believers, Trump’s renovation of the Reflecting Pool should have been a great example of his efforts to restore America from its broken state,” Holt told me. “When it became clear that the renovation had become a disaster, MAGA lobbyists changed their talking points instead to portray the situation as a sign of the depravity and depravity of their critics.” That pattern, Holt noted, is similar to how the MAGA media system responded to the ICE killings in Minnesota earlier this year, or how it has tried to provoke a war in Iran. “The primary function of this media ecosystem is to elevate and appease Trump’s base. And these days, like public support for the government, it does much more than the latter.”
This leaves the next three steps in the future. If the patterns hold, we should expect 11. Blaming more (one contractor he told it Politics lining repairs will take weeks), followed by 12. Loss of interest. And then, of course, the most important one of all. The foundation on which every Trump debate is built. The dirty president’s perpetual motion machine:
13. Pretend it never happened, and move on to the next thing.
