MS NOW94%
The Reflecting Pool fiasco is a reflection of Trump’s authoritarian instincts 82%
By Symone D. Sanders Townsend0%
6/27/2026, 10:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 25 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Confirmation Bias, and Hasty Generalization, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 47.4% saturation with 301 hits. Analysis detected 1,919 faulty-reasoning hits from 635 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 74.4% and a BS Rank of 82% (3,689 of 20,496 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 82.00% of the article peer group.
President Donald Trump can be unpredictable.
He changes his mind based on who last talked with him.
He has no real interest in the day-to-day work of running the federal government.
But beneath the chaos, he does have a governing philosophy.
The ongoing debacle of the Reflecting Pool has been a helpful distillation of his approach: Make a big promise, use it to reward your allies, blame setbacks on your opponents, criminalize dissent and then attack the press.
The first three steps are fairly common in politics, especially among populists with little experience in government.
But it’s the last two that turn Trump into something more than just a run-of-the-mill incompetent politician.
Authoritarianism often begins with the habit of treating ordinary problems as criminal conspiracies.
A court strikes down his policy, and he calls the judge “crooked” or “corrupt.”
A protest escalates, and he calls the protesters “paid agitators.”
If an authoritarian government cannot accept criticism, then it has to label critics enemies.
If it cannot admit a mistake, then it has to blame sabotage.
And if it cannot accept failure, then it has to find someone to punish.
The fact that Trump used these tactics on the Reflecting Pool may be comical, but it’s also ominous.
Earlier this week, federal officers arrested multiple people at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after Trump blamed “vandals” for damage to the newly renovated monument.
So far, the only one we know is facing charges is a former Olympian who says he simply stopped during a bike ride, reached down and touched a piece of blue coating that had already peeled away from the bottom of the pool.
The framers of the Constitution understood that those in power have a tendency to see critics as enemies.
That’s precisely why they built a system designed to restrain power rather than indulge it.
That concern was not theoretical then and it is not theoretical now.That’s why this story does not end with an algae-filled Reflecting Pool.
It ends with ordinary Americans in handcuffs, extra fencing around a Washington landmark and National Guard members standing nearby, as though they were protecting a target of terrorism.
And that is the progression that should concern us all.
Once ordinary politics is treated as criminality, the machinery of government inevitably follows.
It does not stop at protecting a president’s narrative.
It begins policing the people who challenge it.
We’ve already seen this administration deploy troops against protesters.
We’ve seen federal law enforcement increasingly drawn into political disputes.
We’ve heard journalists cast as enemies rather than watchdogs, and political opponents portrayed as criminals in need of investigation and prosecution instead of as competitors.
Once ordinary politics is treated as criminality, the machinery of government inevitably follows.ef
The Reflecting Pool is simply the latest reminder that, in Trump’s Washington, the line between politics and criminality is growing dangerously thin.
That’s because the common thread is not just inflammatory rhetoric.
It is the growing weaponization of government against ordinary political activity and the ordinary people who engage in it.
When a president begins treating ordinary politics as criminality, it does not stay rhetorical for long.
Eventually, someone gets investigated.
Someone gets detained.
Someone gets arrested.
Trump spent years warning Americans about the weaponization of the government.
The Reflecting Pool is the latest suggestion that we should take those warnings seriously — just not in the way he intended.
The real warning was not about the people he accused.
It was about how he would act when he got back in power.
Don’t forget to subscribe to “MS NOW Presents: Clock It,” Symone Sanders Townsend’s new podcast series with Eugene Daniels on the latest political news, the catchiest cultural moments and how they converge. Listen to the latest episode here.
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Analysis
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