Donald Trump has found a way to honor America’s veterans while ensuring that the largest thing anyone sees is still something Donald Trump wanted built.
His proposed 250-foot “Triumphal Arch” near Arlington National Cemetery is facing another lawsuit, this one from nine members of the Kennedy family. Their complaint, filed Tuesday and reported today, argues that the structure would obstruct historic views and cast shadows over gravesites, including John F. Kennedy’s.
Most people arrive at a cemetery and understand that this is an occasion to make themselves smaller. Donald apparently looked around and thought the dead needed a statement entrance. A federal judge temporarily blocked construction last week. But the arch has an additional qualification that deserves our attention: it has applied for a job in national defense.
Back in September, Trump announced that, at the military’s request, the project would also become a “top grade Military Complex,” accommodating drones, snipers, and ammunition. Of course. The Pentagon called. They’ve reviewed the threats facing the country, and what’s missing is a tremendous doorway. You can imagine the procurement meeting. Someone proposes improved communications. Someone else raises cybersecurity. Donald slides a picture across the table.
What if the entrance to France were bigger?
I appreciate the versatility. Usually, when I buy something unnecessary and start explaining its additional functions, we’re discussing a kitchen appliance. Yes, it makes waffles, but it also does sandwiches, and technically the children could inherit it. Donald’s purchase justification comes with sniper positions.
Unfortunately, Judge Tanya Chutkan examined the administration’s national-security explanation and observed that the supposed security features appeared nowhere in the planning documents used to review and approve the project. An awkward omission for a military complex.
You would think the military part might make the paperwork. A little diagram. A cupboard labeled DRONES. Something to distinguish the nation’s critical defense infrastructure from a very ambitious wedding backdrop. Instead, the national-security argument has acquired the familiar atmosphere of a child remembering, halfway through explaining why he needs a gaming computer, that it can also do homework.
There are legitimate reasons to protect Washington. Those reasons deserve serious planning, evidence, and scrutiny. The administration should be able to demonstrate why this particular structure, in this particular place, meets an actual need.
“Donald wants it enormous” is a design preference. We should be able to locate the security assessment separately.
Meanwhile, the White House says the arch is intended to honor the heroes buried at Arlington and has called it unfortunate that members of the Kennedy family joined the litigation. Imagine having to explain that you would prefer your relatives’ graves remain visible, only to be informed that you’re interfering with the president’s effort to honor them.
We understand your concerns about the shadow. Unfortunately, your loved one’s tribute requires us to block the sun.
The family’s objections concern the setting, the sightlines, and a place whose meaning already exists. Arlington does not need a president to improve its significance by installing something large enough to interrupt it.
The rows of graves have managed to communicate sacrifice with devastating clarity. They do it quietly. That may be where the misunderstanding began. Trump’s approach to remembrance seems to require a structure that can be seen from wherever people are trying to remember something else.
And this is where the absurdity becomes a question about power. National security carries weight because real threats exist. When an administration invokes it to defend a president’s preferred construction project, the public deserves to see the work behind the claim. Courts should examine it. Congress should ask questions. People whose families are buried nearby should be heard.
A president’s enthusiasm doesn’t settle those questions, however many capital letters he deploys. Veterans deserve care, housing, support, and a country willing to reckon honestly with what it asks of them. The people buried at Arlington deserve the dignity of the place chosen to remember them.
Donald deserves to survive the experience of being somewhere that isn’t about him. We could start with a modest exercise. Let the man visit a national cemetery and leave without adding square footage.
A pretty poor con man who signals his real intentions far too early and far too blatantly. He thinks we’re blind AND stupid.