Trump’s Triumphal Arch

President Donald Trump has proposed building a Brobdingnagian triumphal arch at the Memorial Circle of the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The National Park Service solicited citizen comments on this project, and I submitted my own thoughts a day before the deadline for such submissions. What I wrote to the National Park Service can be read below. (As I thought about this project, I decided to write a poem about it. You can read the poem and see a drawing of the proposed monument here.)

Propriety

Whereas most monuments in Washington, D.C, have had a citizen constituency that sought (and sometimes paid for) construction of the desired monument. The Triumphal Arch promoted by President Donald J. Trump has no such constituency. No one is urging that it be built, and there is no widely recognized triumph to which it is an obvious response. (One suspects the arch is intended to represent the triumph of Mr. Trump over constitutional republicanism.) Many citizen groups are urging that the monument not be built, citing aesthetic or spiritual considerations.

The president’s apparent excuse for proposing this monument is the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. Many would argue that this milestone of longevity is ironic, as the continuing existence of the nation as a constitutional republic reflecting the sentiments of the Declaration of Independence is more imperiled in 2026 that it has been since the American Civil War. It is not an exaggeration to say that Americans have been less than celebratory in their recognition of our semiquincentennial. That the proposed monument should be 250-feet tall represents a simple-minded design aesthetic unworthy of being inflicted on a capital city whose monuments are, by contrast, more modest and cerebral.

The proposed arch is, in fact, the product of a narcissistic president who wants to leave as many lasting marks on the nation’s capital as he can and who believes that big is always better than small and that gold is always better than any other material. He has spent all too much time among Middle Eastern potentates and fails to understand republican restraint.

The size of the proposed arch is large beyond all reason. I doubt that Americans who see the rendering of the proposed arch appreciate just how large it is, though the people depicted might give them a clue. The monument is more than two and a half times as tall as the nearby Lincoln Memorial and considerably wider. The Arch of Titus in Rome, which is usually cited as the model for other triumphal arches, is only 50 feet tall. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris is just under 73 feet tall. The National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge is 60 feet tall. The tallest arch I could find anywhere in the world is the Millennium Gate Museum, which is only 82 feet tall. In other words, one could stand two instances of any arch in the world atop one another without being as high as the proposed monument.

Pragmatics

A major federal construction project would normally require a congressional appropriation. The president has said nothing about the financing of his arch, and his other construction and demolition projects have not sought congressional approval or financing. The arch is likely not intended to be an exception to this procedure. This is a large project and one that will take a long time to complete. Mr. Trump’s second term will likely end with the arch only partially completed. A succeeding administration will likely be unwilling to complete the project, and the incomplete arch may remain an eyesore for years.

Inscriptions

The proposed arch carries the inscription “ONE NATION UNDER GOD” on the front elevation and “LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL” on the rear elevation. These words were adopted from the current official version of the Pledge of Allegiance. Both of these slogans are, in essence, propaganda, and would be contested by many citizens.

The choice of “ONE NATION UNDER GOD” is doubly problematic. Before 1954, the Pledge read “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” When the Pledge was created, many living adults had lived through the Civil War. It was seen as important that the Union never again be divided. In 1954, Congress inserted the words “under God” in an attempt to distinguish the United States from the “godless Communism” of the U.S.S.R. Arguably, the indivisibility of the Union is more important than its being “under God,” whatever that means. The God reference is dismissive both of atheists and of believers who do not either accept that the United States is special in the eyes of God or that it consistently behaves in an especially godly manner. Both Iran and Israel would seem to have more claim to being nations “under God” than does the United States. Some citizens may see being “under God” as an aspiration, but many view it as a cynical irony. At least whoever designed the proposed arch did not propose using the actual, though unfortunate, motto of the country, “In God We Trust,” which is patently untrue.

Whereas “ONE NATION UNDER GOD” asserts a property of the country, “LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL” is a concept whose attribution to the nation is unstated, or, to be more generous, only implied. In other words, the two slogans are structurally different. Although I suspect that a majority of Americans would subscribe to the notion that the country should deliver liberty and justice for all, many would dispute it actually does so or that it is in the process of delivering it more generally. Moreover, one may question the meaning of “all.” Many undocumented people who have lived in America for decades surely do not believe that the current administration even aspires to deliver liberty and justice to them.

If the proposed arch is to carry large inscriptions, we should derive them from the Great Seal of the United States: “E PLURIBUS UNUM” and “NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM.” These mottos translate to “out of many, one” and “new order of the ages,” respectively. These mottos have the advantage of properly applying to the nation for all time. They do not convey propaganda messages. That they are in Latin might actually inspire healthy discussion. Some would argue that Americans are allegoric to Latin, however. If Latin is seen as problematic, use “ONE OUT OF MANY” and “A NEW ORDER OF THE AGES.”

Statuary

The proposed arch is to be topped by a figure flanked by two eagles. The eagle, as our national bird, is often used as a national symbol. The central figure is, at best, odd. It appears to be modelled on Lady Liberty, i.e., on the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. This figure, however, has wings. It is unclear what iconography is intended here. The figure will not doubt be seen as Lady Liberty preparing to take flight and abandon the country for which she has so long been a symbol.

In Summary

IThe proposed arch appears to be nothing but a vanity project of a power-obsessed chief executive. It is an unpopular project likely to become a District of Columbus eyesore and a laughingstock at home and abroad. It should never be built.

— LED, 7/29/2026