One wonders how much state power is now being exerted simply to keep one man from ever having to admit that he was wrong.
On Saturday, Donald Trump announced that the United States Park Police had arrested multiple individuals for vandalizing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He called it a serious crime against a national monument and promised years in jail.
This is the reflecting pool that he had ordered renovated and promised would cost $1.8 million but which has evidently run past $14 million. The pool was painted in a dark “American Flag blue” which experts say raised the temperature and caused algae blooms and sickly green water almost immediately. Meanwhile what appears to have been slipshod application has led to the blue paint peeling up in large rubbery chunks.
One serious criminal is David Hearn, a 67 year old three-time Olympian. On Friday he stopped his bike at the pool and reached into the water to touch a strip of blue paint already peeling off the bottom. National Guard troops and Park Police reportedly detained him for five hours.
Another serious criminal is Jonathan Karl, a reporter with ABC News. He has been covering the pool’s failures. Trump accused him by name of sticking his hand in the water and ripping the rubber off the surface.
Trump has reportedly now sent the National Guard to the National Mall to guard the reflecting pool.
In response to someone touching the reflecting pool, the state has answered with soldiers, at least one arrest, and the threat of prison.
One wonders how much state power is now being exerted simply to keep one man from ever having to admit that he was wrong.
Notes To My Future Self 