President Donald Trump looked at the plans for his 250-foot triumphal arch this week and decided that some things are simply too foreign for the Potomac. On Thursday, the Commission of Fine Arts approved a revised design for the massive structure near Arlington National Cemetery. The most striking change? The removal of four gold lions from the base because, as the Commission noted, lions are “not native to the United States.”

The arch, which will serve as the centerpiece of America’s 250th-anniversary celebrations, remains a staggering monument to neoclassical ambition. It stands 166 feet tall in its own right, topped by a 60-foot golden statue of Lady Liberty flanked by eagles. While federal employees at the DHS go unpaid, the administration is focusing its aesthetic energy on the exact height of Lady Liberty’s torch and the procurement of a new White House helipad.

Read together with the news of the $1 billion luxury Secret Service infrastructure project, the arch describes a capital that is no longer a seat of governance, but a stage for monumentalism. The Interior Department is already requesting an aeronautical study from the FAA to ensure the arch doesn't snag any incoming private jets.

The thread linking these projects, though stated in no filing, is the triumph of the Gilded Arch over the social contract. In the D.C. of 2026, the public may be hungry, and the border guards may be insolvent, but the view from the Memorial Bridge will be absolutely impeccable. We have traded the bread of the common man for the gold leaf of the sovereign elite, and the trade, at least for the tourists, looks like a bargain.