Donald Trump’s Paint Jobs

For more than a century, the area around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has served as a staging ground for civic participation. With its grand scale but subdued character, it is a place where much of the meaning is made by the people using it: the millions of visitors who have descended upon “America’s Front Yard” for marches, tourism, and celebrations.But in recent weeks, the western end of the National Mall has become a construction zone, the latest spectacle in President Trump’s effort to imprint his legacy on Washington, D.C., by renovating it. Workers in protective suits have completely drained the water and are now coating the concrete basin with a vivid blue, while tourists gawk at the tarped-off project rather than the monuments that the pool was designed to mirror.In Trump’s view, the makeover, which he hopes to complete before the nation’s 250th birthday, on July 4, is coming along swimmingly. Last weekend, he shared photos of a sample test that crews conducted in the basin to inspect its reflective properties. “Looking really good,” Trump reported on Truth Social—and there’s a chance that the rushed project might turn out fine. In the photos, a shallow strip of water reflects puffy clouds and pale stone in striking blue detail. It was an improvement over an earlier rendering, in which the water looks like a blue you might see on a new Corolla.Critics have called the partially painted pool “ridiculous” and tacky and have taken to posting pictures of the site from the sky near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. Supporters (and various government social-media accounts) have praised Trump for leading what they describe as a long-overdue beautification project of the nation’s capital. On Wednesday, Trump took a victory lap for his administration’s fix-up job on many fountains around D.C., writing on Truth Social, “The ‘Granddaddy’ of them all will be The Reflecting Pool.”But whether the pool will ultimately enhance or diminish the National Mall i