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I personally think your argument can be summed down to:
I think those are fair points and can be discussed at length, but I think you didn't address the incompetence of this Reflecting Pool debacle which was my main point. I noticed I didn't detail Trump's incompetence in my thread starter so I'll do here so you can have a chance to respond.
I think Trump picked an incompetent Secretary of the Interior in Doug Burgum
Earlier you said:
Your flow chart is very incomplete, the same contractors (Atlantic Industrial Coatings) that was hired for the initial renovation was hired to repair it. I find it unlikely that the Federal Government will get any money back.
The renovation project was rushed, as stated from the dismissal:
The handling of evidence of supposed vandals was bungled. No videos, no pictures, only witness testimony by the NPS which we have no evidence whether they are reasonable and truthful people or raging liars. (Body cams would be great here).
Claims about other kinds of vandalism like knife cuts or dumping of phosphate with again no evidence.
The National Mall with the emblazoned 8647, there's no chasing that?
Now all the above can be argued is Burgum's fault, but then I would point to the quote up top. I've mentioned before but I find it very strange that Burgum can keep bungling and there's nothing to be done.
I think Trump picked an incompetent District Attorney in Jeanine Pirro
Let's work backwards from the possible futures that are already lost to us.
I don't even know why Pirro has to be DA for DC, what makes her more special than the other MAGA-aligned attorneys out there that Trump picked her. (I can also wax on about how Trump is incompetent at enlarging his circle so that he has more MAGA-aligned attorneys out there to pick from).
I think Trump was incompetent and set a deadline in retrospect couldn't be achieved
Yes, that's how it works. Just like how people can still point to the 2012 renovations that Obama did and failed. I do hope that this time the pool is fixed for good so that there is no need for multi-million dollar renovations in the future. But did it have to be done before? Can't it be done after? Just need some marketing "Today is the 250th anniversary of this great nation, look around enjoy this, because tomorrow we will start the renovations of special landmarks in this great city that has been left unfunded by all the previous guys".
Yes, I know, at this point it's veering into Monday morning quarterback, but agian, I point to the quote above.
I think Trump is incompetent at enlarging his group of supporters
If there were more MAGA-aligned attorneys, he would have a better pick of the litter instead of Jeanine Pirro.
If there were more MAGA-aligned attorneys, maybe they can convict vandals even when the city sides 95-5 with the vandals (remember John Adams defending the murderers?)
If there were more MAGA-aligned people, maybe there won't be any vandals even.
This is veering into non-Reflecting-Pool reasons on how Trump is not enlarging his group of supporters so I'll stop here.
Now one thing that really irked me about your comment.
You just made a bunch of assumptions about me then attacked that. You didn't even address my arguments, just attacked this imaginary me you have in your head. You've already lumped me into all the people that you detest and assumed the worst.
Ok, let's go back to your arguments
1. "Have you looked at the other things he did?"
Yeah, at this point after over a decade of Trump in the spotlight, I do have a general understanding of the things that Trump did. You can say all you want about Trump being a good builder and he makes good buildings, but that's not the same as being a good president. I put more worth on your arguments about how Trump drives down homelessness in DC. But that can be criticized too.
If the homeless numbers are down, where are they going? I don't see much news about low cost housing being built in DC. Maybe those homeless people you see "congregating on the bridges just within the Virginia boundaries" are exactly the former-DC-homeless. That's certainly one way to fudge the numbers.
I found this article from 2025 July that shows how the homeless numbers dropped and has its own critiques:
And maybe we shouldn't celebrate too early seeing as in 2026 the homelessness numbers increased slightly.
In fact, I honestly think Trump would be doing a good job of making DC beautiful (though I haven't been there recently). But there are criticism, and yeah, it's nothing to do with the incompetency regarding the Reflecting Pool.
2. "Trump tried, you can't blame him for the results of others"
I do agree with the general sentiment of applauding someone for trying, it's very much in the spirit of one of the best quotes from Teddy Roosevelt. But just as much we can praise someone for trying, it is not mutually exclusive of how we can't criticize the incompetence with which it was carried out.
And as pointed out way way above, "the buck stops here". Fairly or not, Trump will be judged in the court of opinions and history for his AND his administration actions.
3. "They are terrible people who would have persecuted him anyway"
Yes, they would, that's just competition. That's the eternal game of politics and culture warring. You have to win, and win so decisively (like let's say gay people in present America) so that you can't be persecuted on whatever it is you're fighting for. Trump could have been "he's a fascist but at least he keeps the pool clean" Mussolini-style (even if in fact Mussolini never did get trains to run on time really), but he didn't, and so therefore the narrative was made and he will be podunked on it. So yes. Incompetence.
Burgum was previously the extremely-popular governor of North Dakota, whose reputation was so strong that he was floated by national media as a candidate for Trump's VP slot. He was considered a once-in-a-generation pick for DOI because his life spent in America's Interior, and his vision for what to do with it, are considered extraordinarily strong for a position that is usually passed-over by candidates of the first rank.
Your argument is that Burgum is an incompetent Secretary because one investigation into one failure didn't produce enough evidence to convince you. And what evidence there was you dismissed out of hand. Do you have any thoughts about Burgum's record of competence on oil drilling, wind policy, solar, wildlife refuges, Indian Affairs, national monuments? Well, Burgum is incompetent because user lollol thinks NPS rangers need bodycameras.
Jeanine Pirro was appointed District Attorney after Trump's first choice, Ed Martin, was forced to step down from nomination because of Thom Tillis. The position of US attorney for DC is a thankless job because the DC attorney's office is a viper's nest of career lawyers who are more aligned to the culture of Washington DC than conservative or Republican priorities. Jeanine Pirro was, at least, somebody who sacrificed quite a lot by aligning herself with Trump over the last 10 years and was, by all accounts, somebody who was actually interested in the meat-and-potatoes work of running the DC office.
Your argument is that Jeanine Pirro is incompetent because, on one case out of the hundreds on her portfolio, she dropped a case facing a 95% Dem Jury Pool Indictment she was forced to initiate because of political considerations made by her boss. Ever been handed a lose-lose situation before? Now, look, I'm no Jeanine Pirro defender, I think Trump's assessment that she choked is probably right, and I think she's wrong to back down and lose face and she'll be punished for it. But your theory, essentially, is that she must be incompetent because, on the only issue you bothered to look at, you didn't like what you saw. You admittedly don't even know very much else about her.
So maybe you see what I mean? When I summon TLP and his point about lazy omniscience. You don't actually care about the Reflecting Pool as such, you care about being right. You don't actually know much about the details of how this stuff actually works. But you're sure Trump must be incompetent, and you're willing to seize upon whatever first evidence you find to prove that you're right. And if it weren't that, it would be something else. Pirro backed down, so she must have been incompetent. But if she had kept fighting, that would also be proof of incompetence. Etc. etc.
Just to work down the list of other arguments, for the sake of completeness:
Trump was the first Republican to win the popular vote in a generation. You almost surely mean something more specific by this, maybe that Trump doesn't attract more high-quality people to his movement. But I'm sure that no matter who Trump attracted, you would come up with a definition for why they were a priori incompetent.
Again, Pirro was not Trump's first pick because the Senate constrained him.
Yeah, Trump just needs super lawyers with super law who are so good they can convince even Democrats who hate them to support them. Why hasn't Trump done this?
No, the point is that in your rush to declare that Trump is "incompetent" you've hastily elided obvious domains in which Trump is very capably competent. Instead of constraining your broad strokes at all, by e.g. saying that Trump is good at building but bad at [something else], you've locked yourself into the very silly argument that Trump isn't good at anything. Now you're doubling down on that strange premise.
Your argument now is that Trump is incompetent because he didn't fix everything everywhere all at once. Trump can't actually solve low cost housing in DC, at least, not without Congress or DC authorizing more housing within DC.
Yeah that was my point. Trump can do everything in his power clean the city up, but he can't do everything in libs' power. One half of the political spectrum wants to kick the homeless out of parks, one half doesn't, the half that doesn't will shelter the homeless and say, "see, you can't kick the homeless out of parks, you must be incompetent!"
Yeah, right, my argument (my observation really) is that there are a lot of people emotionally attached to Trump being wrong, therefore they will invent a reason why what he is doing is wrong, no matter what he actually does. It's in fact what you're doing in this very argument.
This is empty rhetoric. No matter what Trump did, you would find a way to criticize it, and then justify that by saying your just calling balls and strikes. It's not an argument, it's a rationalization.
See what I mean? The pool was dirty before Trump cleaned it. But you don't want to give him any credit, so you have to contort this one-way construction where you would have given Trump credit, you would have been fair, but, alas... You've not even taken responsibility for your frame, you've just outsourced it to "the narrative".
So now that I've taken the time to address all of this point-by-point (which I will probably not do if we have future rebuttals), I want to come back to this:
"Detest" is a strong word here, I don't think I said that, I'm sorry if I did, I don't hate you. And sometimes my remarks are aimed at "you" and sometimes at the imaginary rhetorical "you," which is an effective and valid way to construct an argument without rebutting every point-by-point, please-don't-take-it-personally.
However, at bottom, I think I have interacted with your point of view to a significant level and addressed it very thoroughly, no matter if some of the points I rebutted don't describe your position as you would make it, because I think the conclusion goes more or less like this:
You believe, a priori, that Donald Trump is incompetent. You would find any flaw Trump makes and use that to justify your criticism. It doesn't matter what the flaw is. If the pool breaks, it can't be from sabotage or vandalism, no matter how many people are cheering for that exact outcome. If the pool doesn't break, it must be too expensive. Or the contract was corrupt. Or it was a bad use of money. But you would never extend this criticism to your own group: I don't see any forthcoming mea culpa about how Obama was also incompetent, or how all presidents are incompetent and Trump is just the latest, or how many leftists criticizing the pool explicitly want to destroy it. No, you want to claim the neutrality of just calling balls and strikes as you see it, but that neutrality will never reach any conclusion that isn't what you wanted.
"The Buck Stops Here"? Trump is already having the pool fixed. But I don't think you're really interested in having the pool fixed. I think you're interested in being right.
Your points about me not knowing enough about Burgum and Pirro to able to judge someone is both correct and not correct. Yes, it's true that the best way to judge and form an opinion of a political figure is to take the grand totality of what they do. But just like every other political figure, the way they are judged are usually by a few thing that defines them. Could be Biden and not stepping down from running, could be Harris and her no regrets defending Biden on national TV, could be Hillary and her non-secure email servers, could be Obama and his arrogance (Iran, dealing with Republican congress), could be Tim Walz and the Somali fraud cases.
Notice how I used Democratic figures to satisfy your complaint how I don't give examples of incompetence to your "other side"?
For me, Burgum and Pirro are defined by the events of the Reflecting Pool and the National Mall. I'll be perfectly happy to read what you have to say about their records elsewhere. Like I said:
Thank you for going through the arguments. I find that your reading of them differ from mine quite a bit. I will endeavor to go through your arguments as well
Maybe it's easier to point to examples of competence as a contrast. The reason why FDR is competent is because he's able to get people to keep voting for him and his party so that FDR can keep doing things he wanted and drive his enemies into political footnotes, one could say FDR got and maintained a large group of supporters.
Another example is Reagan, who went up in vote percentage from 50.7% in 1980 to 58.8% in 1984. Reagan is a good example of enlarging his group of supporters (with the standout example being the quips made between him and the Democrat surgeon for his assassination).
Trump definitely has an upward trajectory, from 46.1% in 2016, to 46.8% in 2020, to 49.8% in 2024. And yes, Obama has a downward trajectory, from 52.9% in 2008 down to 51.1% in 2012. But if we pit Obama vs Trump, is Trump likely to win? I think not.
And yes, I do think Trump isn't attracting the higher quality people to his movement. And I disagree with your argument that I am so uncharitable to not recognize competence in Trump picks. I never said it before on this forum but I do think and know that Tom Homan is more competent at his job of deporting people without controversy than Greg Bovino.
Your argument about the Senate, don't you feel the counter argument lurking right behind the corner: "If there was a large bench of good lawyers for MAGA, then even if Thom Tillis blocked Ed Martin due to Jan 6th ties then another Ed-Martin-esque person can be found."
And also importantly, I see you didn't respond to: "If there were more MAGA-aligned people, maybe there won't be any vandals even."
Which I want to also mention that just as much as you think I haven't proved "there are no vandals of the reflecting pool", you haven't proved "there are vandals of the reflecting pool". Incompetence of the contractor is definitely proven based on the dismissal though. In fact, it's probably better to focus on the National Mall because that's obviously vandalism.
I can certainly think of places where Trump is competent, but if you do ask me in general then I do think his presidency is more incompetent (Greg Bovino style) than competent (Tom Homan style). Yes, it is a reflection of my value judgment as a member of the public. Now I didn't count your "Trump is competent at building stuff" because that wasn't about the reflecting pool.
To showcase something I did find that shows Trump's competence somewhere in this reflecting pool thing, I was going to leave this for a future thread reflecting on the pool (pun intended) but I think Trump's "pool guy" is probably a good pick. Initial reporting has Trump saying this:
Now the article didn't know who this pool guy is but it sounds to me like the later reported John Cafaro and Greenwater Services who got a $1.7 million contract to install “nano bubble” device that clean the pool. And look, the problem with the algae arrived because they turned off and moved those devices for Trump's UFC/birthday activities as the devices are large and eyesores.
Did it take a week? probably. Did it cost about a million and a half? 1.7 is pretty close to me. Did most media conflate Greenwater Services and Atlantic Industrial Coatings (who does a different job and got a much bigger contract)? Yeah, looks like it to me. So in fact, there were actually two "pool guys" (multiple guys I'm sure), though I don't think Trump knew Atlantic Industrial Coatings so he is another layer removed from that incompetence (and yet more on Burgum/DOI and how did that come about)(but then again Trump did pick Burgum).
There, I gave you a pretty valuable piece of information, I think you can stop drawing me as a Trump-hating-obsessive person who is just jumping to conclusions seeing that I do my research and cite my sources and go into detail on things and am careful with my words.
Why did you gloss over me saying this: "In fact, I honestly think Trump would be doing a good job of making DC beautiful (though I haven't been there recently)." I literally says that I expect Trump to be doing a good job doing the things you praised him for (cleaning up DC). Ok, let me state in even more detail then: it can be both and many things, competent at making things beautiful or beautiful things, incompetence at picking people who should be making beautiful things, competence at directing military force to cleanup homeless encampment, incompetence at actually reducing number of homeless people by passing legislation, reduce red tape, increase funding, whatever. Maybe you should recognize that my frustration is the reflecting pool incompetence and how that indicates to me on where and what domain Trump is good or bad at and whether that makes him a good Federal executive. You can point out the other things that Trump does well, and I might as well and did concede on that, but that doesn't take away the incompetence with regards to the pool.
I'm going to skip your next few paragraphs, I read it though and thought I don't think anything I say here is going to change anything because I don't know when "you" means me or "you" means the greater rhetorical you that you're rebutting to.
I already said this: "I do hope that this time the pool is fixed for good so that there is no need for multi-million dollar renovations in the future."
Yes, I reserve my right to criticize Trump and his administration. Yes, I can make criticisms of other presidents, just because I didn't do it in this thread doesn't mean I don't have any. Yes I reserve my right to praise Trump and his administration. Yes, I can make praises of other presidents, just because I didn't do it in this thread doesn't mean I don't have any. I don't believe that "arguments as soldiers" is good for society. I believe that there are things that are "both sides", and also there are things that are not "both sides". You can confuse me with the
sometimes my remarks are aimed at "you" and sometimes at the imaginary rhetorical "you,"but I know do my best that I don't and didn't do that to you.Also besides, maybe you should turn around and do that then, you should think about where Trump has failed as a president, and not in the "he failed because he didn't do enough kinda thing", more of the "he failed because he went too far/overlooked/made a terrible decision". And maybe you did, and I don't know that, but in this thread you seem like a pure glazer to me.
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