It's Just a Pool... And Yet

The Reflecting Pool algae saga seems to be the Trump scandal that finally sticks to Teflon Don

When I showed up at the home of my Cancel Me, Daddy co-host Christine Grimaldi in Washington, DC last week, she asked me what I wanted to do on my visit there.

"I want to see the algae," it was my only request.

I lived in DC for four years and have done and seen all the tourist things before. Going back to the nation's capital felt more like a return to a semi-comfortable home than a vacation, with all the nostalgia triggers that come along with visits to places you left years ago.

The chimes and sounds of the Metro brought a thrill the first time I stepped aboard, thankfully there were no train fires this time.

But it was the algae that had my attention. Forced into the public eye through the sheer power of social media jokes and memes, the American political internet has been gripped by the scale of utter failure in Trump's reflecting pool renovation. And now I was in town and I wanted to see it.

The pool itself is utterly unremarkable, built solely to enhance the aesthetics of the area as folks gaze out from the steps the adjacent Lincoln Memorial. The long pool perfectly reflects the height of the nearby Washington Monument. After all, the pool's job is simply to reflect.

No one comes to the area to look at the pool itself. Until now.

As Christine and I weaved our way through the obnoxious America 250 celebration construction; first large swathes of the parkland next to the National Monument closed off to build temporary stands, and then a massive set of temp cell phone towers, and then another set of temp admin buildings; I heard people talking amongst themselves about looking forward to seeing the algae.

Upon arrival, the green bloom was obvious. I don't think I've ever intentionally looked closely at the reflecting pool before but I could tell it wasn't normal. And yet it fit right in with the general state of the capital.

Besides the construction, I was in town in the aftermath of the White House UFC match. Trash was strewn about the White House grounds and across the street on the mall. Construction equipment was busy taking down the UFC lighting rig (which had cat ears for some strange reason).

Days later when the stage and seating was removed from the grounds, photos revealed that the event had killed the grass on the White House ellipse.

I have never seen the DC tourist hotspots in a state of such utter destruction and disarray, and this was supposed to be a year of celebration of the nation's founding with events all summer long. It's easy sometimes to feel a sense of romantism in the pageantry and grandness of the capital city. Even I, a heartless cynic, caught a breath when I glimpsed the Capitol for the first time driving into downtown last week.

For the hundreds of reporters who cover politics in the city, those who must report every day at the White House or on Capitol Hill, those places mean something. Those buildings and grounds are not just symbols of power, they are markers of their own success in one of the most cutthroats sections of our dying journalism industry.

The algae, and the trash, and the dead grass on the ellipse represent a fundamental disrespect of those symbols. And the DC press are finally sticking with a Trump scandal.

For over a decade now, the political press has nodded along and quickly moved on from every major Trump scandal as the president lurched from one thing to the next with all the guidance and self control of a toddler. I thought maybe the press would finally get it in the aftermath of January 6, when Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, stole dozens of items, and smeared literal shit on the hallowed walls of the second most prestigious newsbeat in political journalism.

Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News spent all day on J6 texting those valuable Republican contacts for help as conservative terrorists hunted for Democrats and journalists to string up. But none of his messages got a reply. That is what Republican politicians think of Sherman and his colleagues.

But did Sherman write about this? No.

Instead we only found out about this story from a Democratic Congressional report about J6. Sherman, for whatever reason, didn't deem this newsworthy to tell his readers. Maybe he thought it would threaten his access to conservative sources on the Hill? Who knows, but the bottom line his vow of silence on the matter was a political decision.

The myth of both sides demands sacrifices.

Like Sherman, large sections of the DC press looked away, too afraid to burn their access to Republican politicians in an era when the GOP needs the mainstream press less than ever before.

In the process, this-too-afraid-to-challenge approach to journalism has given cover for Trump to build the most openly corrupt administration in the 250 years of the United States government. The scandals are too numerous to count and the ever decreasing numbers of journalists are not given the time or resources to dig into every little scandal coming from the Trump firehouse.

But the algae scandal feels different from those. This project was perhaps Trump's most irrational. No one ever complained that the reflecting pool wasn't blue enough. It's not supposed to be blue, it's supposed to reflect.

But Trump became obsessed with making it "America Blue" for the 250th. Like the sudden destruction of the East Wing and the impromptu construction of the grass killing UFC octagon, Trump lurched into action with all the half-assedness of a slumlord eager to shut up a complaining tenant.

He gave a no bid contract to an unqualified contractor who did a rush job and botched the project. The sealant used was not fit for purpose and possibly disrupted the natural filtration system the granite of the reflecting pool previously used. And then they pumped water in from the nearby Potomac River and voila, ALGAE!

Any dumbass off the street could have predicted it before it happened and yet here we are. This was the president's pet project and it was an immediate and foreseeable failure, and Trump himself is crashing out over it. When asked what happened with the renovation earlier this week, Trump said, "Barack Hussein Obama," as if saying the former president's name would summon Beetlejuice or something.

Then later in the week, Trump bizarrely claimed that a vandal cut the new lining. First the cut was 250 feet, then it was 350 feet. Either way the story didn't hold water. There is no visible cut in the pool and if there was, it would be all over Fox News 24/7. Not only that but the pool is under constant video surveillance.

The failure of the reflecting pool renovation is too obvious even for an inherently gullible DC press corps. Taken with the utter destruction upon the capital of Trump's birthday (for himself and for the country), it shows that Trump has utter contempt for the symbols Americans have been trained to revere.

Trump is shitting where the DC Press Corps eats and it's too much to take. Trump has revealed how little he thinks of the symbols of American tradition and indeed, for the markers of DC journalist success themselves and the algae scandal is the perfect representation of the president's failure.

Only time will tell if this scandal sticks, but it's already rare for a Trump story to last for more that a week. Next week, Trump's July Fourth celebration will kick off and it will be 16 days of celebrating the red, white, and blue. And green.

Thank you all for reading! This week's Friday post will come on Saturday. If you enjoy reading my work, consider becoming a subscriber for free or get full access to everything with a paid subscription.