In a social media post Sunday, President Donald Trump announced a major update to the “triumphal arch” he intends to build in Washington. The president declared that the 250-foot structure will now also be a “top grade military complex” that launches drones and houses snipers on its roof. That’s quite a shift from previous design plans, which imagined the arch as a tourist attraction with visitors able to purchase tickets to a planned observation deck.
The surprise transformation of the proposed arch’s intended purpose is likely grounded less in military needs than in flailing legal stratagems. But combining a fixation on aesthetics with the threat of violence is nothing new for this president. Trump’s vision of a utopia has become inseparable from the tropes of dystopia as he works to transform America into a beautiful police state.
Combining a fixation on aesthetics with the threat of violence is nothing new for this president.
None of the agencies working on the arch have confirmed Trump’s claim that the change comes at “the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes.” The president’s assertion, however, closely resembles the administration’s arguments in ongoing lawsuits attempting to halt construction of a massive White House ballroom. It’s not hard to see Trump pre-emptively shifting the supposed necessity for the arch now to head off potential delays down the road.
If such a request from the Pentagon does exist, it will likely make its way into court filings in the coming days. A group of veterans filed a lawsuit in February hoping to halt the arch, which they said would “dishonor their military and foreign service and the legacy of their comrades and other veterans buried at Arlington National Cemetery.” The federal judge handling the case previously ordered the administration to give the court 14 days notice before any construction begins. In the meantime, the administration has charged ahead: Construction is planned to begin in November despite reservations from local officials.
Unsurprisingly, the president seems not to have considered how off-putting his announcement would sound. It’s bad enough that even the National Park Service admitted that the arch would detract from other Washington landmarks. Even worse are the optics of placing an arch classically meant to celebrate conquests between two monuments reflecting on the horrors of war. Turning one of the main routes for commuters and travelers from Virginia to enter Washington into a towering security checkpoint, where drones can be launched at a moment’s notice and snipers monitor entry below, feels like the kind of thing that would make citizens feel less safe.
But the Trump administration has happily melded violence and aesthetics as part of its governing ethos. The Ultimate Fighting Championship bout held on the White House lawn this summer was billed as a tribute to the nation’s founding and treated the hypermasculine violence on display as its own form of aspirational aesthetic. Two men pummeling in each other in a cage for entertainment and the glory of America perfectly encapsulates the shallow nationalism Trump has hoped to instill with his various vanity projects.
The “triumphal arch” decision likewise serves as a counterpart to the National Guard’s continuing deployment to Washington. One of several deployments launched nationwide last year, the occupation is the last one standing thanks to federal control of the city. While many of those surges were to help suppress protesters rallying against Trump’s immigration policies, the Washington deployment was launched to supposedly deal with a “crime emergency” in the capital as part of the “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force.”
There’s little separating Trump’s aesthetic vision for the country from the brutality it’s meant to at some points help mask and at other times accentuate.
In the year since first arriving in the capital, National Guard members have been seen patrolling the city with very large guns, while also taking part in beautification projects and snow removal. Normalizing the presence of armed soldiers on the streets through trash cleanups and other public works feels like the tactic of an occupying force attempting to win the hearts and minds of the conquered. (One wonders if the “Star Wars” universe’s Galactic Empire ever deployed its Imperial Stormtroopers to plant flowers while also hunting down dissidents.)
In truth there’s little separating Trump’s aesthetic vision for the country from the brutality it’s meant to at some points help mask and at other times accentuate. The authoritarianism he’s wielded to muscle through his projects has made his arch and ballroom into monuments to the blunt application of power. It’s unsurprising then that Trump has failed to recognize the dissonance of placing snipers alongside a massive statue of an angel watching over the city he is attempting to make his own fiefdom.
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