Let’s not mince words. Donald Trump isn’t building an “Arc de Trump” to honor America. He’s building his own tombstone on the National Mall before he’s even cold, and he’s doing it with the explicit goal of mocking the legacy of every president who came before him.
This isn’t merely an urban planning initiative, it’s a narcissistic tantrum rendered in stone. While other leaders worry about policy, he’s obsessing over marble tiles and gold leaf, trying to turn the White House into a knockoff Mar-a-Lago and now, to crown his vanity, erecting a triumphal arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.
To put it bluntly, this is a deliberate, middle-finger insult to the very memory of national sacrifice those places represent.
Why This Monument Misses the Mark
Ignoring the “privately funded” fluff being touted, this is the world’s most obvious money-laundering scheme for political influence. Of course his donors are lining up. What’s a few million to have your name etched into the foundation of a monument to your favorite strongman? It’s a bargain.
Meanwhile, he has explicitly told donors that leftover funds from the ‘fully financed’ $250 million ballroom could be diverted to the arch. Let’s call this what it is: not fiscal wisdom, but a shell game for his vanity projects, and the American public is being asked to applaud the theft of their own civic space
The Congress needs to grow a spine. Pass a law, today, that makes it illegal to name a single park bench after a sitting president, let alone a monument. If a president wants a legacy, let it be in the laws they pass, not the buildings they brand.
Why It Matters
The real danger is that we treat this as just another Trump spectacle—bizarre, but harmless. It’s not. It’s a test. How much of our national soul are we willing to auction off? The response can’t be a weary sigh. It has to be a resounding roar.
Preservation groups must be ready with lawsuits, challenging the very legality of this monument and fighting it in court for as long as it takes. Journalists must also doggedly trace every single dollar from the donor’s pocket to the architect’s blueprint. And every lawmaker who claims to value our democratic institutions must be forced to go on the record: will they allow a sitting president to turn the National Mall into his personal branding opportunity?
Donald Trump wants an arch. Let’s give him a legacy of resounding, definitive public and legal rejection instead.
