Trump made his closing argument for the midterm elections in a speech today at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
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Trump → make → Pool
The choice of location made Democratic consultants exultant.
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consultants → make → location
The reflecting pool has become a symbol of the Trump administration: an expensive boondoggle that failed immediately.
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that → reflect → administration
After touting his experience as a developer and claiming he was an expert at building pools, Trump refused to accept the conclusion that the installation had been faulty—a conclusion the contractor agreed with—and instead insisted that vandals had ruined the project.
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vandals → tout → project
Under his control, the Department of Justice went so far as to launch a criminal case against a man who reached into the pool to touch the liner.
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who → go → liner
In October, a judge dismissed the case.
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judge → dismiss → case
Highlighting the reflecting pool in the last hours before Election Day recalled the Greek myth of Narcissus, the young hunter who falls in love with his own reflection in a pool and is unable to tear himself away.
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who → highlight → himself
In today’s world, that choice also seemed to show Trump’s conviction that he can shape the narrative according to which Americans act.
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Americans → seem → which
But his speech seemed to prove the opposite.
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speech → seem → opposite
The very small audience heard Trump go on and on about the reflecting pool, showing photos of the repairs, seeming to want to convince people that he was the brilliant developer who had fixed a problem 100 years in the making and that his efforts had been beset by vandals.
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efforts → hear → vandals
It’s possible his speech writer intended for the theme to suggest that Trump was fixing the U.S. as he fixed the reflecting pool,
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he → ’ → pool
He didn’t move off the reflecting pool, algae, bubbles, granite, vandals, and liners for the first 16 minutes of his speech.
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He → move → speech
Then he turned to his usual wild exaggerations—the investments he has drawn to the U.S., the thousands of criminals he’s captured, the school “mutilizations” of children, his conquest of Greenland and Venezuela to give the U.S. control of “almost 50% of the world’s oil,” his victory over Iran, and so on—before veering back to his Washington projects, including replacing the “very inferior grass” at the White House, near his new helipad.
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he → turn → helipad
He boasted of repairs he’s made to fountains, then turned to praise his planned “triumphal arch military complex,” his “National Garden of American Heroes” to be filled with statues of Americans he admires, and his new Washington, D.C., golf course.
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he → boast → Americans
“[I]t’s a golden age of America,” he concluded.
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he → ’ → America
“We have a country that we can be proud of again.
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we → have → that
We were laughed at all over the world for four years.
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We → laugh → years
We were laughed at like we were stupid people.
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we → laugh → ?
We were laughed at by every ruler, every president, every prime minister, every king, every queen, but they don’t laugh anymore.
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they → laugh → ruler
We will not know the results of the midterm elections until after the polls close and votes are counted, but early voting and polling suggest this election will see a Democratic wave.
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election → know → wave
Certainly, Republicans appear to be preparing for such an outcome.
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Republicans → appear → outcome
Alec Hernandez, Meredith Lee Hill, Erin Doherty, and Andrew Howard reported in Politico today that Republicans are bracing for big losses and are already privately blaming Trump.
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Republicans → report → Trump
His trade wars, attacks on immigrants, killing of U.S. citizens, war on Iran, corruption, and alliance with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, as well as his lack of concern for the cost of his actions on the American people, have ruined his popularity and leave Republicans with little to run on.
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wars → ruin → little
“We all know who the problem is,” a Republican strategist told the Politico journalists.
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strategist → know → journalists
“It’s Trump.
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It → ’ → ?
And do we continue down a path of losing?”
But this moment is far bigger than Trump.
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moment → continue → Trump
At key moments in American history, the majority of voters have woken to the reality that a small group of men has rigged the system to funnel the wealth produced by ordinary people into their own pockets.
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group → wake → pockets
With that wealth, they have bought power and undermined democracy in favor of themselves.
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they → buy → themselves
The potential for this perversion of the principles of the Declaration of Independence—that all people are created equal and have the right to an equal say in their government—became clear even before the creation of the United States of America.
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people → create → America
Shortly before the Revolutionary War, Daniel Boone had crossed the Appalachian Mountains and reported back to Virginians the miraculously rich resources of the land to the west, the land called “Kentucke.”
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Boone → cross → west
When the Revolutionary War ended, settlers rushed to push aside Indigenous Americans and lay claim to Kentucky.
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settlers → end → Kentucky
Once there, they quickly discovered that equality was not the inevitable result of economic freedom.
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equality → discover → freedom
Some men settled on better land than others, some had family money, some were just lucky, and quickly, those men accumulated more than others.
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men → settle → others
Along with their wealth, Kentucky’s landowners gained political power, which they used to secure legislation that promoted their interests at the expense of poorer settlers.
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that → gain → settlers
Wealthy men came to control the government by working with lawmakers who shared their values and by buying the channels through which voters got information.
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voters → come → information
Gradually, the laws they put in place circumscribed other men’s ability to rise, and wealth moved upward.
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wealth → put → ability
Equality of opportunity faltered.
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Equality → falter → opportunity
In 1787, when the Articles of Confederation were still in force, the congress assembled under that document passed the Northwest Ordinance, which was designed to prevent wealthy men from dominating the new western lands.
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which → assemble → lands
The measure outlawed both primogeniture—the system in which the oldest son alone inherited a family’s wealth—and slavery, systems that the men who wrote the Northwest Ordinance believed were instrumental in concentrating wealth.
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who → outlaw → wealth
The men who wrote the Northwest Ordinance thought it would protect democracy, but over the next fifty years, a handful of wealthy enslavers tightened a stranglehold on the South.
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handful → write → South
…and 24 more, not listed.
The Aporia
