The only thing taller in the area that stretches from the Arlington National Cemetery east to the Library of Congress across from the Capitol is the Capitol itself, and by only a few feet.
Grace, beauty, and appropriateness have never been in his lexicon. Gross, ugly, and inappropriate too often define him to an increasing number of people. Last week, in an oval office reveal of the design for this monstrosity. CBS reporter Ed O’Keefe asked the President who the arch is for. “Me,” he said.
The fact checkers who have built their careers on Trump’s lies had a day off on that one.
The Commission on Fine Arts refers to it as the Triumphal Arch. To be honest, the letter “i” should replace the “h.”
The only manmade arch that we have been able to find that is bigger than this is the one on the St. Louis riverfront.
Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe in Paris is almost 100 feet shorter, at 164 feet. The Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City is only 220 feet. The Arch of Triumph in Pyongyang, North Korea tops out at 197 feet.
The four-sided arch that is the Pennsylvania State Memorial at Gettysburg, honoring the 34,500 Pennsylvania soldiers who fought there, checks in at 110 feet. Not far away, the National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge honoring those who wintered there 1777-78 is sixty feet high.
The top of the Memorial Arch in Huntington, West Virginia is only 42 feet from the ground. The Camp Randall, Wisconsin arch honoring Civil War veterans from that state needs only thirty feet to dignify them. The Bushnell Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Hartford, Connecticut is but 116 feet and the Washington Square Arch that commemorates George Washington’s inauguration in New York City gets the job done in 77 feet.
“It’s going to be beautiful,” he says. Philip Kennicott with the Washington Post offers a brutal opposing view:
It is an insult to the men and women who risk their lives to protect democracy, who have fought in wars against fascism, who have actually achieved victory rather than merely declared and celebrated it. Its symbolism is borrowed and confused, and it will block a sacred vista that connects the Lincoln Memorial to the final resting place of the Civil War dead, and veterans from every major war and conflict this country has fought.
This is a subtly that escapes people such as Trump who think symbolic as well as real sledgehammers and wrecking balls are among mankind’s greatest inventions. The arch will stand at the southern end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, interrupting the flow of history from the Lincoln Memorial to the peaceful hillside that is Arlington National Cemetery, a cemetery on land confiscated from Confederate commander Robert E. Lee as a resting place for those who defended the Union in the Civil War.
Some critics say the planned arch will obscure much of he cemetery but will frame Lee’s mansion at the top of the hill beyond. Is that intentional? Who knows, although Trump has expressed a fondness for honoring Confederate leaders.
Trump has said it will be 250 feet high as a symbol of the nation’s 250th birthday. As of last week, however, it is only colored drawings. The first shovel of dirt for the project has not yet been turned and Independence Day is less than 90 days away. As one critic put it, “If it isn’t going to be done this year, it really has nothing to do with the 250th Anniversary, and as Trump said, it’s for him.”.
Kennecott concludes, “It perverts a fundamentally American idea about war. We have fought them, we have died in them, and we have brought war to too many people who did not deserve our meddling with their politics and sovereignty.
“But no matter the cause, no matter how great the victory, we fundamentally honor sacrifice and service. We celebrate the end of wars and the achievement of peace, not victory. Roman victory arches are lovely to look at, but they were primarily political statements, assertions of personal power and propaganda by ambitious men”.
Caesar Trumpus wants his arch.
If it can’t be finished by July 4, maybe he can complete it in time to celebrate his glorious victory over Iran.