6 events in Passaic County with a date

Determined to wreck the view

Trump's giant arch would be inferior to the undying flame

By: Mike Kelly
columnist
USA Today Network

..... Washington, DC, is a city of majestic vistas. Sadly, Donald Trump now wants to block one of the most symbolic:the sight line form the Lincoln Memorial to the eternal flame that burns atop the grave of President John F. Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery.
..... Does Trump know this? Who knows?
..... Our president seems desperate to stay true to his reputation as a tenacious builder of big ( and bigger) things - even if they seem out of place, like the onion-domes of the grotesque taj Mahal casino and hotel he constructed on the boardwalk in Atlantic City. [NJ] He then watched as the project he repeatedly called a "wonder of the world" went bankrupt and had to be sold to another developer.
..... In Washington, now in his second presidential term, Trump seems intent on putting his bigness stamp on the city.
..... There is the massive ballroom he says the White House desperately needs. For what? who knows? At 90,000 square feet, Trump's ballroom would make the 55,000-squaer-foot White House and its adjoining West and East wings - each roughly 12,000 square feet - seem like secondary structures.
..... A judge's decision and public outcry may eventually put the breaks on Trump's ballroom - or at least shrink it. But, for now, our president wants to plow ahead.
..... And he's not through. Trump is now pushing to build a giant concrete arch on a patch of grass, across the Potomac river and near the main gate of Arlington National Cemetery in northern Virginia.
..... The arch would rise 250 feet. That's about the same height as a 25-stroy apartment building. Which means that the Arc de Trump - as some critics call the project - would be nearly 100 feet taller than Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
..... Think here of Baby Huey, the overly large and clumsy cartoon duckling trying to blend in with the normal-sized ducks. Or Big Bird amid the smaller Muppet.
..... In other words Trump's arch just doesn't fit. And unlike Baby Huey or Bib Bird, it's not cute. But it would be large. and Trump could say he built it.
..... It would also block the view of the eternal flame from Washington's Lincoln Memorial.

We cannot ignore the echoes of Lincoln and Kennedy

..... To understand what this means to our nation and, indeed, how we view history, you need to come to the back side of the Lincoln Memorial at night and gaze westward. Your eyes cross the Memorial Bridge and the Potomac River and then settle on the darkness of Arlington National Cemetery, the resting place of some 400,000 American soldiers, many of them killed in our nation's wars.
..... The darkness can seem ominous and sad at night. So many graves. So many young lives cut short.
..... And yet, there is a tiny light in that darkness. too: the eternal flame that burns on the portico where Kennedy is buried.
..... Seeing that flame from the Lincoln Memorial is a reminder of how America endured the horror of two presidential assassinations, separated by a century, each occurring amid some of the most tumultuous times in American history.
..... Kennedy. of course, died as America grappled with racial discrimination and the threat of nuclear war and as the nation was about to embark on the military and diplomatic debacle that became the Vietnam War.
..... Lincoln was killed only days after the Civil War ended. And his death set off decades more of racial discord that swept into the 1960s and the Kennedy administration a century later.
..... Lincoln and Kennedy. Two leaders who possessed the unique gifts of being able to speak elegantly and express America's most prized ideals. Two men with visions of how America might short by bullets dipped in the anger that continues to lurk beneath that idealistic vision for America.
..... You don't need a doctoral degree in history to understand how the murders of Kennedy and Lincoln were deeply depressing and agonizing moments that threatened this America's ability to endure. Each death became a cultural and political touchstone.
..... That's why being able to take in the vista of the eternal flame from the Lincoln Memorial is so meaningful to the symbolism of Washington - and by extension, the nation.
..... The flame offers comfort amid the darkness and sadness. It tells us that even in America's worst moment, there is still a light of hope.

I was there when Kennedy was buried

..... As a boy and in the company of my family, I stood amid the throngs of silent mourners at Arlington National Cemetery on a somber Monday in November 1963 when President Kennedy was buried on one of Arlington's hillsides. The ceremony was simple. and it ended with Kennedy's widow, Jacqueline, draped in black, taking a simple taperer lighting the propane-fueled eternal flame.
..... It was a somber moment, for sure. But as Jacqueline lit the flame, you could sense that the hope and idealism of the Kennedy administration would not burn out despite its shortcomings.
..... Does Trump even comprehend the meaning of this? Again, who knows?
..... Trump says his arch would commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Hence, the arch's height of 250 feet.
..... but does America really need a concrete arch to remind us of the courage and idealism that framed the Declaration of Independence?
..... In pondering that question, it's worth noting that when Trump was asked last year [2025] by a journalist who the arch was being built for, he answered: "Me."
..... Maybe his answer was just an attempt at sarcasm. Maybe it was the truth. who knows? with Trump, sarcasm and truth often change places.
..... But if Trump wants to celebrate the Declaration of Independence, he can ride a few blocks from the White House to the National Archives. the real Declaration is there for all to see and admire.
..... And if he wants to know how the light of the nation he leads can penetrate so much darkness, he should take another ride after dark to the Lincoln Memorial and look across the Potomac.
..... Maybe that tiny flame will help him realize America doesn't need a arch to be rinded of the greatness.

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