Federal officials are taking significant steps to start construction of President Donald Trump’s proposed triumphal arch. They hope to complete it by 2028.According to the Washington Post, the president claims that the 250-foot arch will celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary.But one foot for each year is tall compared with most Washington monuments. The White House stands only about 70 feet tall. The Lincoln Memorial is 99 feet, and the Jefferson Memorial is 129 feet. Martin Luther King Jr. gets a piddling 30 feet. Trump’s arch would tower over them all.
The Capitol dome and the Washington Monument would still be taller than the arch. Ironically, so is the Old Post Office, now the Trump International Hotel. The founders of our constitutional republic viewed their own authority while in office and leadership as both temporary and limited. Most founders rejected the pomp and circumstance of European monarchies. When Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, and George Washington looked at European History, they saw monarchies bankrolled by aristocrats and wars fought to protect the powerful. They wanted the new nation conceived in liberty to go in a different direction. Too many modern political leaders have disregarded those lessons of those who fought for our independence from England.
