Dirty Pool

Back in 1990, when Trump was just a real estate developer that other real estate developers made fun of, I took my dad (a real estate developer no one ever made fun of) to Atlantic City to spend a night in the just-opened and heavily hyped Trump Taj Mahal Casino. In the elevator up to our room, my dad sniffed a couple of times and said, “You can smell the kitchen from the elevator. They cut corners. This place is not built well.” Suffice it to say, my dad would not be surprised at the disastrous results from our now algae-filled Reflecting Pool. (After spending his youth watching, and fighting, the rise of fascism in Europe, he wouldn’t be surprised by much else, either.) In the grand scheme of things, the Reflecting Pool saga doesn’t amount to much, but since it’s getting so much attention, it might be worth ascribing some meaning to an otherwise meaningless story. First, it’s a reminder that Trump was never all that good at those things he was known for definitely being good at (real estate, construction, building things, the still long-awaited infrastructure week). Second, it’s an example of the onslaught of seemingly irresistible stories that come at such a feverish pace that they bump other (often more important) stories from our battered public consciousness. The swamp, it turns out, is draining us. (For example… Algae story: not big. Failed war in Iran: big). Third, the increased security and fencing put around the Reflecting Pool to protect it from supposed vandalism typifies the longstanding Trump tradition of using real resources to solve fake issues. Every second wasted on an imagined problem is a second not spent on a real one. Fourth, the media’s overcoverage of this story isn’t actually its biggest failing. It’s that we’re getting headlines like this: Was the Reflecting Pool vandalized? Experts cast doubt on Trump’s claims. And this: Trump Blames Vandals for Reflecting Pool Problems. Internal Records Tell Another Story. Headlines STILL present a possibility that a nonstop liar could be telling the truth. It’s fully insane. It’s Onion-esque, but real. I half-expected the byline to be Al G. Bloom. And fifth, what could be more illustrative of this era than a narcissist so malignant that he actually ruined his own reflecting pool? Circling back to that night in 1990, my dad and I won a lot of money, the Taj Mahal eventually went bankrupt, and that phony real estate developer Donald Trump was never heard from again. (If that sounds like fake news, I blame the vandals who accessed my laptop keyboard…)