Washington Post Ends Election Season With Dumbest Investigation Of All Time

“Democracy dies in darkness,” The Washington Post informed readers in February of 2017 — but the newspaper’s last-ditch attempt to shade President Donald Trump ahead of the midterm elections is laughable at best.

The Post’s 11th-hour investigation dug into President Trump’s proposed new monument celebrating 250 years of American independence — dubbed “Independence Arch” — and determined through digital modeling that the structure would, at times, cast a shadow over parts of Arlington National Cemetery.

The outlet ran a digital simulation showing the shadows that would be cast by the monument over the course of a full year, and then published the findings on Tuesday — one week before Election Day.

Over the course of a year, the shadow of the triumphal arch would touch burial sites in Arlington National Cemetery on 284 days, The Post found. It would briefly cover Kennedy’s eternal flame on 18 days, and it would shade the former president’s memorial on 50. It would darken the Military Women’s Memorial on 109 days.

The shadow would move across the graves of veterans and their next of kin from the Vietnam War, Korean War, World War II, World War I, Spanish-American War and Civil War, the model shows. It would dim the headstones of formerly enslaved people. In total, The Post found that it would pass over more than 75,000 graves.

After four paragraphs and a graphic, the Post acknowledged that most of those shadows would disappear from cemetery grounds before visitors arrived.

The Post acknowledged that the arch’s shadow would remain on cemetery grounds after the 8 a.m. public opening on just 26 days per year.

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The U.S. Department of the Interior described the likely impact of those shadows in a statement: “That period is less than an hour after sunrise, at which point shadows are very lengthened and distorted, and are mingled with the long shadows of trees.”

University of Connecticut history professor Micki McElya argued that it did not matter whether the shadow was ever seen — only that it existed.

“It’s not about people in the cemetery seeing shadows so much as it is about the fact of the shadows themselves,” she said.

But The Post’s investigation did not stop there — because shadows at sunset are cast in the opposite direction.

Combining its morning and evening findings, the Post reported that the arch’s shadow would “touch” either the Lincoln Memorial or the gravesite of former President John F. Kennedy on 110 days per year, albeit briefly. It would also shade parts of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on more than 30 days, and would occasionally touch the Vietnam War and Korean War memorials.

“There are a lot of families out there who are going to visit their loved one and just be overwhelmed by the shadow of this vanity project to Trump,” Paul Eaton, a retired U.S. Army major general who works with the veterans advocacy organization VoteVets, said of the project he deemed a “sacrilege.”

The Trump administration pushed back on The Post’s report, with White House spokesman Davis Ingle responding, “The Triumphal Arch in Memorial Circle is going to be one of the most iconic landmarks not only in Washington, D.C., but throughout the world.”

Trump announced plans for the monument on April 10, saying, “I am pleased to announce that TODAY my Administration officially filed the presentation and plans to the highly respected Commission of Fine Arts for what will be the GREATEST and MOST BEAUTIFUL Triumphal Arch, anywhere in the World. This will be a wonderful addition to the Washington D.C. area for all Americans to enjoy for many decades to come!”

“This will be one of the Great Pieces of American Architecture, honoring the history and significance of Arlington Cemetery and befitting the most powerful Capital in the World,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement in September.

The arch, Trump said, will also provide storage space for military equipment and ammunition so that drones and snipers could be deployed from that location at a moment’s notice.

In an October 5 Federalist essay, National Capital Planning Commission Chairman Mark Paoletta argued that Trump’s arch would fulfill the vision of a bridge-and-plaza project Congress authorized in 1925, providing a “fitting entrance” to the national cemetery where so many of the nation’s fallen heroes had been laid to rest. The earlier design called for two monumental columns.

The Post’s report did not include any information about the long-term plans for the project — which Trump has promised to finish — suggesting that the “darkness” where democracy allegedly dies is at least partially self-imposed.

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