The past may be carved in bronze, but the voice is unmistakably Trumpian
T
he Presidential Walk of Fame, which festoons the wall of the West Colonnade that runs along the northern flank of the Rose Garden, was supposed to offer a quiet stroll through history. Just some presidential portraits, dates, and neutral verbs. Sometime over the previous week, President Donald J. Trump decided to install a set of historical plaques with a built-in Trump annotation.
Take Grover Cleveland. The plaque begins normally enough: born in Caldwell, New Jersey; first Democrat elected after the Civil War; nonconsecutive terms. Then it takes a hard right turn into modern commentary lane. The plaque explains that while Cleveland pulled off nonconsecutive terms, Trump’s own nonconsecutive victories were done “more successfully,” with a “landslide second election,” winning all seven swing states, the popular vote, more counties than anyone, and overcoming what the plaque calls “crooked Fake Media” and “unbelievably skewed polls.”
By the end, the plaque stopped being about Grover Cleveland at all.
Elsewhere on the walk, the tone varies by president, but the narrator never changes.
Create a free account to keep reading.
