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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   22644 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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That seems like at least strong evidence that some vandalism happened, and nontrivial evidence that the vandalism had a larger effect, which quite a lot of media voices are minimizing as a conspiracy theory, just to support claims of incompetence. Which doesn't make Trump's claims correct or the vandalism responsible for the broader problems; it just shows that the NYT's arguments aren't consistent with its own evidence.

I would not call that photo strong evidence. If you want to convince me that the coating is failing in many places due to vandalism, a photo of a person kneeling next to the pool with a backpack and what may very charitably be a knife is not going to cut it.

I think what happened was that Trump made one of his big announcements on how the pool would be the Best Pool Ever, longer than the height of the tallest buildings, painted in American Flag Blue, a monument which will last for centuries. Then his pool guy did a shitty job and the paint came peeling off after a few weeks. Once it became common knowledge that the coating is coming off, of course people wanted to get their own piece of coating, and likely helped the process along a bit.

His reaction was then to blame these people. My pool would have lasted forever but these hateful liberals are destroying it, or some variant. Importantly, we should not update on Trump claiming vandalism. There is no world in which he would say oops, my pool guy did a subpar job, my bad, I will take full responsibility and try to fix the damage.

I agree that the algae bloom is probably more about phosphate levels than it is about the failing coating. Charitably, I do not want to rule out that someone deliberately emptied a sack of fertilizer into the pool just to spite Trump, but I seriously doubt that this is happening every time they change the water. I find it unlikely that before Trump made his announcement, he discussed the matter carefully with aquatic biologist experts (i.e. PMCs) and took their advice on mitigating bloom.

I would not call that photo strong evidence. If you want to convince me that the coating is failing in many places due to vandalism, a photo of a person kneeling next to the pool with a backpack and what may very charitably be a knife is not going to cut it.

Hm.

That seems like at least strong evidence that some vandalism happened, and nontrivial evidence that the vandalism had a larger effect,

The alternatives are, yes, quite plausible. I am not, pointedly, claiming that Trump's position must be clearly correct, or even reflect a good model of the problem. I'm definitely not going to propose that he's competent at anything.

I am, however, noticing that quite a lot of news coverage is insistent that there's no evidence in this case, and quick to imply that there's no plausible world in the general case, where people would damage public property just to spite Trump.

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