Ummm..hey guys? I think something is wrong with the reflecting pool…
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When we were kids in high school, a popular false bravado phrase was “Don’t start no shit, won’t be none.” Which meant, essentially, that as long as you leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone. But if, for some highly inadvisable reason, you decide we should fight, then fists will fly.
It’s easy to write off this teenage male chest thumping as little more than simply that. But it’s actually pretty good advice to follow long after those teen years are fading into the rear-view mirror. No need to start a problem just to be starting a problem, especially when there was no evidence that a problem was about to take shape.
Trump apparently takes a somewhat different view, which seems to be that wherever there is peace and goodwill, it is his solemn duty to replace said peace and goodwill with as much havoc as can possibly be wreaked.
It’s safe to say Iran isn’t a great place, which is to say not a place where most of us would prefer to live. Still, at this time last year, we weren’t at war with Iran because…well…why? Now we are at war (and then not at war, then back at war, then not, then maybe, then back at war) with Iran because…well…why?
Because Trump.
A couple of months ago, the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C. was reflecting just fine. Same as it ever was since the pool first opened over a century ago in 1923. But then, several months ago, Trump decided to re-paint the pool. Said it would cost around $2 million. Wound up costing over $14 million. And within days of completion, green algae started sprouting in the pool, then the paint started peeling off, then people started getting arrested for daring to take a closer look at just how badly Trump had screwed up, and then ducks started dying in the pool. Because…well…why?
Yep.
Normally, it might be difficult to make any connection between a century-old pool of water and a war going on halfway around the world. But both are clear examples of how this entire country – and much of the world – has become an unwilling captive to Trump’s deranged whims and moods. He can’t negotiate an acceptable end to the war he started for absolutely no reason because he is incapable of doing so. This is the sort of negotiation that would require qualified adults to be in the room, and there are none. Meanwhile, soldiers are dying.
As for the ruined reflecting pool, it is only ruined because Trump deemed it so. But now that it is not as he prophesied, he has deemed his ruined fantasy to be someone else’s fault. A fictional someone to be named later. Maybe. But the pool itself is likely ruined at least until he leaves office, because returning the pool to normal would be to concede that Trump screwed up. And he will never allow that.
This level of madness won’t disappear just by wishing it away.
