As President Donald Trump's vanity projects collapse, the reality of his failures is reflected in his presidency, according to a columnist on Wednesday.
Trump has attempted to remodel the White House and build a ballroom, slap his name on the Kennedy Center, and remodel the reflecting pool by spending millions to repaint it dark blue only for algae to return and turn it neon green — but that has all backfired, wrote James Ball, political editor at The New World, in a piece published by The i Paper.
"Trump, in other words, waded into a complex problem that successive administrations failed to address, declared he alone could fix it, didn’t learn anything about the actual underlying issues, and fell flat on his face," Ball wrote. "Some readers might be spotting parallels between the reflecting pool and the President’s Middle East policy, but even just sticking to his misadventures in the capital provides no shortage of disasters."
His second term has been marked by missteps and "laws keep tripping him up," Ball explained.
"Trump sees himself as a strongman and wants the world to see him in the same way," Ball wrote. "He thinks Congress and the Supreme Court work for him. Laws are things he gets to write, not things he has to follow. He seems to believe that every other nation has to do what he wants."
Yet Trump has continued running into problems.
"But it is a lot harder to project that image when you can’t even manage a home renovation or fix the pool at the bottom of your garden," Ball wrote.
"Trump is a man in a rush, particularly to leave a lasting impression on Washington DC. But by trying to build a legacy in the nation’s capital, he risks doing the opposite. He wants a legacy in marble, not one covered in algae," Ball added.