Mister Mix’s “Pool-ghazi” post coopted my post this morning, but I still want to chime in on Poolgate because it basically encapsulates the entire Trump Presidency (and Trump’s life) in one incident. I’ll just bullet point my thoughts to make it easy:
Narcissistic Delusions of Grandeur. Trump decided to “fix” the Reflecting Pool that did need some fixing but which he could claim as his own (along with the “Arch”, the “Ballroom”, the “Golf Course” and whatever else in DC he could stick his name on.
Grift and Using Government as a Personal Piggy Bank. The Trump Admin actually gave out two no-bid contracts to “fix” the Reflecting Pool. The first went to a company that had worked on his Virginia golf course but had no previous federal contracting experience, was let for $6.9 million, and then increased to approx. $15 million with higher than usual markups. The second went to a Palm Beach supporter and crony who has two felony convictions (MM provided a photo of the crony/felon in his post that is looks like a cartoonish caricature of a Sherlock Holmes era villain).
Incompetence. Didn’t listen to experts who knew the “fix” wouldn’t take and it wasn’t done properly.
Bald-Faced Lying. In announcing the “fix”, Trump stated that Obama and Biden had spent “hundreds of millions of dollars” trying to fix the algae problem; it was actually $34 million.
More Bald-Faced Lying. With no evidence and no police report, Trump stated that vandals had taken “some form of knife or blade, and put a 250 foot long gash into the beautiful facade” and also “poured corrosive and destructive chemicals into the Pool”. BTW, the only chemical poured into the Pool was hydrogen peroxide by workers which resulted in at least on bird death.
Bluster, Blaming Others and Shifting the Focus. In an effort to do what he always does by attempting to stay one step ahead of the carnage he creates, along with the bald-faced lying referred to above, Trump had his underlings start arresting people who did nothing wrong other than try to sate their curiosity and check out the damage at the Pool (including a 3-time U.S. Olympic athlete).
Failure. It’s hard to say this about someone who has twice been elected President of the United States, but from an organizational and operating business perspective, everything Trump has done has been a failure. In the private sector (casino bankruptcies, licensing businesses, airlines, sports teams, even real estate projects that were bailed out b/c they were too big to fail for the banks) and in government (Iran, tariffs, jobs, economy, foreign relations). When it comes to actually having to run an enterprise, Trump is neither competent, nor a leader or even a manager.
While it may be something that is easy to joke about and ridicule, Poolgate is actually one of the most instructive and revealing looks into the malignancy that is named Donald J. Trump.
