Construction crews placed small, fluttering flags across the Memorial Circle on Monday, marking the footprint of President Donald Trump’s proposed Triumphal Arch. The workers conducted preliminary surveys at the site intended to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States. According to court filings, a group of veterans and historians has already sued to block the project. They argue the arch would physically disrupt the sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House at Arlington National Cemetery.

While the surveys proceed, the administrative floor of the government continues to buckle. World History records for May 11 show the U.S. government has finalized a payroll default for 240,000 Department of Homeland Security employees. Despite this mechanical failure of the state to pay its own workers, Senate Republicans have earmarked $1 billion for a luxury Secret Service infrastructure project at a White House ballroom. The contrast is a physical manifestation of the Hollow State: a government that can no longer manage its own payroll but can find billions for neoclassical monuments and elite security hubs.

“AP today remains the most trusted source of fast, accurate, unbiased news,” a spokesperson noted while documenting the surveyors at the capital. The project represents a shift toward what critics call the Gilded Arch phase of American governance, where architectural vanity is used to distract from the hollowing out of public welfare. As the surveyors measure the ground in Washington, the 240,000 unpaid DHS workers represent a growing class of the administrative dispossessed, left behind by a state that prioritizes the spectacle of power over the maintenance of its human infrastructure.