The president’s latest vanity construction project—the “Arc de Trump,” as it has been dubbed online—is naturally attracting tons of criticism. The monument is big, white, with ornate and angelic gold touches; it’s set to sit on the D.C. side of Memorial Bridge across the river from Arlington National Cemetery.
When asked what the arch will commemorate, Trump has said it’s, well, him (naturally). But unappealing though it may therefore be to the majority of Americans who currently give the President a thumbs-down, the arch remains the wrong issue for even those with the most serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome to melt down about.
On Friday, Fox News spotlighted a group of hot pink construction vest-wearing protesters demonstrating against the monument while carrying signs comparing Trump to Hitler—plus someone dressed up as a frog, because you can’t have a good anti-Trump protest these days without inflatable amphibians. You see, Hitler, too, liked monumental, self-congratulatory architecture, and he was a warmongering dictator.
Anti-Trump outlet The Bulwark, meanwhile, highlighted Trump’s incredulity at a group of veterans suing over the arch’s proposed location. They dislike the “vainglorious” notion of the nation’s veterans being buried in its shadow (though, officially, they are suing on the basis that the arch violates federal law, lacking congressional approval and all).
This is all just the latest iteration of outrage over Trump’s building spree across our nation’s Capitol, following his demolition of the White House East Wing (a subject he has highlighted on fully a third of the days in the year of our Lord 2026, thus far), ongoing “refurbishment” of the Kennedy Center, and his redesign of other parts of the White House, which forced him to address rumors that he’d been buying and installing cheap products from Home Depot (the horror!).
Some progressives are trying to use the arch to make a supposedly-substantive point—though a likely insincere one, since everything Trump does that is unpopular boosts them. New York’s Senator and 2020 presidential contest do-nothing Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted that, “Between the ballroom and the arch, it’s clear Trump is more interested in decorating DC than working for the American people.” Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat, meanwhile opined that “A ‘triumphal’ arch in his honor is a slap in the face to working Americans who are struggling to get by because of his policies.”
The reality is that the 2026 election will almost certainly turn on cost-of-living concerns—not gold leaf-related ones, granted—and Trump’s failure to get inflation under control. Rising gas prices are almost certainly behind recent CNN numbers that showed him performing worse with voters than even Jimmy Carter at this point in his presidency; polling more broadly shows that cost-of-living issues are hurting him even with his base.
But really, while the arch matters insofar as it is Grade A[LM1] ragebait, Americans are actually better off with Trump devoting an ungodly amount of time to playing architect and interior designer. In fact, he should do it more, and carry on his family’s tradition of erecting properties here, there and everywhere—though perhaps without actual “Trump” signposting attached in this instance, at least.
Sadly, during this second term, Trump hasn’t been as distracted by these sorts of Monopoly-board projects as many of us would like. Indeed, from his perch behind the Resolute Desk, he’s been too focused on policy instead. It’s not going great.
Pretty much every major economist not in his direct employ argues that Trump slapping tariffs on really everything has driven up consumer prices on everything from bananas to Buicks to building supplies to Brooks Brothers to beer.
Whatever you think of his “military action” in Iran, it has undoubtedly caused gas prices to spike (by about 90 cents a gallon since this time last year, per AAA). If a further $200 billion in federal funding is appropriated to the Pentagon to pay for the ongoing conflict, that spending will—as spending almost always does—lead to more inflation.
And again, whatever one thinks of it, Trump ultimately taking the view that congressional Republicans were right to resist continuing enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies has made health insurance pricier for at least some people.
Honestly, given that the direction of the Trump presidency is almost entirely dictated by him personally, not individuals he “staffs” items out to, the reality is that the more time Trump spends reviewing samples for new marble floors, pondering Corinthian versus Doric columns (he’s right on that one, for the record), or examining curtain fabrics, the less time he has to spend on all of these costly issues.
The impact of Trump’s policies on average Americans of all political stripes and types will be much “yuger” than the installation of one or more monuments—even if he ultimately decides to plop a giant statue of himself right smack in Washington Harbor, or builds “Donnywood” in the middle of the National Mall. Who doesn’t love a good Ferris Wheel, after all?
Oh sure, on foreign policy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio seems to be largely running the show. Stephen Miller is always going to press for as many deportations as he can get. And Russ Vought will try to push through small-government policy wherever he can, despite being saddled with a very big-government boss.
But if Trump had been more occupied with weighing different photo frames for the White House colonnade and Peter Navarro, Howard Lutnick, and Jamieson Greer—his head pro-tariffs/anti-free-trade honchos—had been unable to get face time with him to press for tariffing penguins and lemurs, wouldn’t we all have been better off?
Ugly as we may find some of Trump’s specific design choices (my personal decorative taste is more “bought it at a bazaar in Turkey” than “neo-Versailles”), it’s better to leave the man to tear up, tear down, and build. It’s a small price to pay if more of it means him leaving, well, just about everything else we’d want a president to be doing alone.
