The Memo: Lincoln Pool furor reflects tensions of Trump’s second term

Sometimes small battles are emblematic of much bigger wars.

So it is with the furor that centers on President Trump and the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial.

In a literal sense, the pool is anything but small. Roughly 2,030 feet long and a little less than 170 feet wide, it is said to hold about 6 million gallons of water.

Still, Trump’s effort to refurbish the pool hardly seems, in theory, the kind of thing that should make major headlines while his administration is at war with Iran, struggling at home with economic dissatisfaction, and polarizing the public with a hard-line approach to immigration.

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