As part of our celebration of America at 250, we’ve started a weekly newsletter by historian Jonathan Horn. Learn what happened this week in American history, why it matters, and what else you should see and read in The Free Press and beyond. This week, Jonathan looks at President Donald Trump’s plan for a 250-foot triumphal arch in honor of America’s 250th birthday. To get this newsletter in your inbox every week, sign up here. —The Editors
From the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., take the Arlington Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River, and you’ll come to a traffic circle where roads leading north and south (including one to George Washington’s Mount Vernon) meet. Inside the circle is a grassy field, which lies conspicuously free of granite, limestone, or marble. Naturally, the undeveloped spot has caught the eye of the country’s most powerful real-estate developer: President Donald Trump. If he gets his way, a 250-foot triumphal arch will soon rise there in honor of America’s 250th birthday.
Per a recent Washington Post survey, only 21 percent of Americans share Trump’s vision for what would be the world’s largest triumphal arch. In fairness, there hasn’t been much of a discernible public relations campaign to build support. Like so many of the president’s proposals for sprucing up the nation’s capital, the gargantuan arch seems to have come out of left field (technically, right field, given the river’s southeasterly flow). As it turns out, however, plans for erecting a monument on the site have a long history—one that leaves space for the president and his critics to do something that would really be a tribute to America’s past: compromise.
