Zille-style stunts — how Democrats can capitalise on Trump’s Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool fiasco

The disastrous saga of the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool adjacent to national monuments and museums in Washington, DC, continues.

The trouble began after Atlantic Industrial Coatings — a firm Donald Trump initially claimed to have personally selected for a $14.7-million no-bid contract because of their work at his golf clubs — completed a coating job so shoddy that the sealant began peeling off in sheets less than a month later.

Compounding the disaster, the new water filtration system installed under a separate $1.7-million no-bid contract by Greenwater Services — a company operated by major Trump campaign contributor John Cafaro — failed to prevent a massive algae bloom.

Most recently, Trump insisted the damage was caused by “radical left lunatics” and promised they would be rounded up, arrested, and charged with federal lawbreaking. So far, at least five people have been arrested, including a former US Olympic athlete who was caught holding sealant he found floating on the water’s surface.

This particular paint sealant — in a colour the president insisted upon, “American flag blue” — is already peeling and is apparently operating in tandem with a water recycling and filtration system that has created the perfect medium for a massive infestation of algae. The resulting water is now an evil mix of peeling resurfacing material and swirling eddies of a massive, thick algal bloom. Trump says the water will have to be pumped out so the pool can be entirely recoated.

(Here is an area where South Africans might have made a real contribution to US-South African relations, given all the pools and ponds in this country, by sending some of the country’s top swimming pool experts to lend a hand — SA Ambassador Roelf Meyer, are you listening?)

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is a major feature of the Washington, DC, landscape, positioned between the obelisk of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

The verge of the pool has witnessed many historic events: Marian Anderson’s outdoor concert when that illustrious African-American contralto singer had been barred from using the then-segregated Constitution Hall in 1938; the civil rights rally where the Reverend Martin Luther King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech; and many other rallies over the years, including anti-Vietnam War protests.

Trump must have imagined his refit of the feature would be the capstone of his rebuilding of Washington, DC, (sometimes in his image) and would have generated the thanks of a grateful, even worshipful nation on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of America’s independence. Instead, it has become an embarrassing laughing stock and a symbol of his ignorance and arrogance.

A lesson from Joburg

Now, we’re just blueskying here, but just imagine what might happen if one of the contenders for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028 has seen YouTube clips of South Africa’s Helen Zille’s pothole campaign, where she immersed herself in some fearsomely deep potholes or went fishing in one of them, as part of her effort to win the mayoral race in Johannesburg...

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Could Americans draw upon this idea to highlight the ineptitude of Trump and Republicans more generally?

Here is how it might play out.

Any number of potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders — including the governors of Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Maryland and California, alongside Senator Cory Booker and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — could settle the primary by challenging each other to a rubber raft and kayak race in the Reflecting Pool.

Of course, they would wear surgical masks and gloves and be publicly vaccinated against typhoid, typhus, and cholera.

With any luck and just a modicum of marketing savvy, this could easily become a popular, annual mid-summer event, easily rivalling Pennsylvania’s famous Groundhog Day festivities. The race would attract thousands of tourists who would come to watch and cheer for their favourites. Naturally, it would give potential candidates a chance to strut (or paddle) their stuff, without having to deliver one of those boring stump speeches.

There could be a trophy for the racer wearing the most imaginative costume (perhaps along the lines of General George Washington in his crossing of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War?) The organisers could even invite Helen Zille to award the trophies. After all, it was her campaign that was the inspiration for this. It is hard to imagine that she would turn it down.

There could be several categories and heats, such as individual gender-specific efforts in a one-person kayak or four-person teams using inflatable whitewater rafts. Television and online broadcasting rights could be negotiated to ensure sufficient revenue is collected to cover any indemnity and insurance needs.

If it becomes an annual event, it could even become bipartisan — along the lines of the annual congressional softball games between Republican and Democratic teams. After all, in some years the big contest would be among Republicans and in others, among Democrats.

In this first year, a few renegade Republican politicians might even join in to demonstrate their sudden discoveries of backbones and rejection of some of the worst excesses of the current administration. The various Washington, DC, police departments could sponsor a raft team to demonstrate their support for protecting the city’s national monuments.

Is it possible that the Park Police might even be encouraged to sponsor the event — if some of the money raised from sponsorships, endorsements, and broadcast rights was handed over to park maintenance and restoration efforts?

Am I dreaming?

Somehow, the nation and its politicians must figure out creative ways to surmount the madness prevailing in key parts of Washington these days and get the nation back into the business of fixing what is broken. If there can be a bit of fun in the process of dealing with something serious, would that be such a bad thing? DM