There’s a reason the news cycle can’t get enough of the Reflecting Pool story – it’s making Donald Trump look even more ridiculous than usual, and for once innocent people aren’t suffering the consequences (ducks haven’t been so lucky). As Jonathan Chait writes in The Atlantic,
The Reflecting Pool episode captures most of Trump’s governing pathologies (corruption, incompetence, authoritarian menace, absurd lies) without any of the normal attendant consequences. It is pure, meaningless fun.
Well, maybe not for the people who’ve been arrested for the terroristic act of picking pieces of disintegrating pool liner out of the murky green water. Or the journalists who’ve dared to report on the story, whom Trump has predictably threatened to sue. But lots of regular folks are enjoying the absurdity of it all – you can already order “Team Algae” t-shirts in a variety of styles.
Given how triggered Trump is by this, I think the next step should be a flashmob-style pool party – civil disobedience with a dance beat. Dire Straits has just the song for it. “Twisting By the Pool” appeared on a 1983 EP by the Mark Knopfler-led band. Though the single didn’t crack the Hot 100 in the US, it was a No. 14 hit in the UK.
A “splash-mob”, if you will.