President Donald Trump's push to militarize his arch in Washington, D.C., is one of his most revealing moves yet, according to one military expert.
Tom Nichols, a staff writer at The Atlantic and a retired professor at the U.S. Navy War College, argued in a new article that Trump's plans to add sniper posts and drone technology to his planned Triumphal Arch are not only un-American, but also reveal the depth of the "darkness" that surrounds the president.
"Militarizing an arch in front of the Memorial Bridge is an even more dangerous and stupid idea than turning a ballroom into a bastion," Nichols wrote. "Motorists crossing the river would have to drive around the structure, potentially creating the kind of traffic jams terrorists could more easily exploit in a city already full of choke-points. (I lived in Arlington and commuted to the District; it’s a messy trip even now.)"
"The arch would also stand close to the approaches to Reagan National Airport, as if that overburdened facility needed more safety and security challenges," he added. "And stuffing the arch with weapons would not only contradict the notion of honoring those who have died in battle, it would increase the possibility of a mistake or a malfunction."
Nichols noted that Trump doesn't seem to understand why the symbolism of the arch is so offensive to the American experiment. For instance, Nichols argued that the project's symbolism casts it in the same vein as the Russian Kremlin, which comes from the Russian word for "fortress," and the Arc de Triomphe that Napoleon commissioned to celebrate his foreign conquests.
"Trump clearly cares nothing for such symbolism," Nichols wrote. "His ego wants what it wants. He lives in a city that he evidently hates and which, for the most part, hates him back. But Trump’s obsession with these vulgar memorials to his own vanity is a reminder of the darkness around him, of his hostility to democracy, his loathing of honor, and his disordered mind."