A Triumphal Arch For A President With No Triumph
The president is spending billions on a failing war—and may spend millions more on a gilded monument celebrating nothing.
Note: video for paid subscribers follows article.
As you no doubt have heard by now, Donald Trump wants to place a 250-foot gilded triumphal arch between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. Triumphal arches traditionally commemorate military victory. There is just one problem: Trump is pushing ahead with the triumphal arch while losing a war.
Trump unveiled the idea more than four months before the United States and Israel attacked Iran. At a White House dinner, he displayed three models. He liked the biggest one the best and called it “really beautiful” and “fantastic.” When a reporter asked whom the arch was for, Trump pointed to himself and said, “Me.” Kudos to Trump for his honesty.
Though the war with Iran wasn’t the reason for the arch, the war has made the arch more ridiculous than it already was. Trump understands what the structure is supposed to mean. It’s called a triumphal arch because a triumph is supposed to have occurred. The arch comes after the victory. But Trump, as usual, wants the branding before he achieves the result.
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He does this all the time. At his golf clubs, Trump has made himself the champion of tournaments that never even took place. Trump claimed the 2018 championship at his West Palm Beach club even though he hadn’t played in the tournament. In 2023, after missing the first round of a senior club championship, he counted a round he had played two days earlier and announced that he had won. Owning the course has certain advantages.
The same impulse produced the fake Time magazine cover displayed at several Trump properties. Then there was the infamous FIFA Peace Prize, which Trump—its first recipient—was given in 2025. FIFA president Gianni Infantino presented him with a gold medal and a large gold trophy. It’s still unclear what the FIFA Peace Prize is or what Trump did to earn it.
If Trump could win a million more of these fake prizes and awards, that wouldn’t be enough. He doesn’t see recognition as what you get after you achieve something. For him, the recognition is the whole point. Actually accomplishing something is a waste of time if you can get recognized without doing the hard work.
The war in Iran has now lasted more than five months, though Trump repeatedly predicted it would end quickly. Trump called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender,” but its government remains in power. The conflict has driven up energy costs, killed 18 American service members and caused enormous suffering in the Middle East. Its cost is $37.5 billion and rising. The administration is now seeking a deal to reopen a waterway that was open before Trump launched the war, while a proposed arrangement could leave Iran controlling traffic into the Persian Gulf. Whatever word the White House uses, “triumph” isn’t the correct one.
As if we weren’t spending enough money already, Trump wants to spend more on his silly monument. It remains to be seen how much it will cost, but your tax dollars will pay for it. The arch would rise more than twice as high as the Lincoln Memorial. There will be elevators, an observation deck and more than 70,000 square feet of space, with a possible café and gift shop.
So, just to recap, we are spending tens of billions on a war that we are losing and an undisclosed sum on a gilded arch to celebrate the embarrassment.
“The Triumphal Arch in Memorial Circle is going to be one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle told the Associated Press. That is an absurdly grandiose claim for a monument that doesn’t exist and commemorates nothing in particular.
Its location makes the project worse. The National Park Service found that the arch would break the deliberately designed alignment among the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington Memorial Bridge and Arlington House, Robert E. Lee’s former home. The alignment and ceremonial landscape, the report said, were designed to “physically and symbolically unite North and South through a coordinated monumental composition” extending across the Potomac.
Trump wants to drop a gaudy monument to himself into the middle of that carefully designed landscape. The Lincoln Memorial faces across the Potomac toward Arlington National Cemetery, established on Robert E. Lee’s former estate when Washington ran out of room for the Union dead. The landscape is already perfectly symbolic. But Trump thought it needed some remodeling. He looked at it and decided the only thing missing was himself.
To make an obvious point, there are more reasons to honor Lincoln than Trump. The Civil War saved the Union. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and pushed Congress to pass the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery. Just five days after Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Lincoln was assassinated for his service to the country.
When Lincoln delivered his Second Inaugural Address, with Union victory approaching, he didn’t brag about how great he was or demand the biggest monument the world had ever seen. He denounced slavery and spoke about suffering and the duty to care for those who had given their lives to preserve the Union. His hope was “with malice toward none, with charity for all” and a country capable of binding its wounds. Victory made him more humble, not more arrogant, because he understood its price.
And perhaps the most important point in all of this: Lincoln didn’t commission the Lincoln Memorial. Congress authorized it decades after his death. Construction began in 1914, and the memorial was dedicated in 1922. That is just one of the many differences between the two presidents: One earned a memorial; the other built himself one. Lincoln didn’t pick the design or demand that it tower over Washington. His successors decided he deserved it.
Trump, of course, has reversed the order. First comes the monument, then (maybe) the achievement.
The arch may become iconic, though not in the way the White House wants it to be. It will be gigantic, overpriced and empty: a monument in lieu of a victory.
Video discussion for paid subscribers (I discuss what should happen to Trumps memorials after hes out…hint…bye bye)
