It used to be that one read of governments tearing down statues to appease woke leftists.  Today, the news is that a group called The Secret Handshake erected a 12-foot-tall “participation trophy” statue for President Donald Trump.

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“We hereby award President Donald J. Trump this participation trophy for his enthusiastic involvement in the Iran war,” reads the plaque at the base of the statue. “While some concern themselves with military strategy, diplomacy, or measurable outcomes, President Trump demonstrated the courage to participate regardless of the final score.”

“As the recipient of this prestigious award, President Trump joins the ranks of children everywhere who received recognition for simply showing up,” the plaque continues.

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My guess is that the people who set this thing up are registered Democrats — logically, because most conservatives would not bother themselves to oppose Trump this flamboyantly, even on an issue that’s at least a little bit controversial among his base.  (Republicans supported the war 67-21 in March, according to the Chicago Council of Global Affairs.)  Practically, D.C.’s residents in 2024 voted for Kamala Harris at a rate of something like 104 percent.  Okay, fine, it was 92.5 percent, so it’s technically possible that D.C.’s one Trump voter climbed down from his tent on the roof of the Heritage Foundation to set up the statue.

The Iran participation trophy is one of a slew of pop-up statues lately to blight the District, as the linked Time article shows.  I wonder how much these things weigh, and what it takes to set them up and break them down, and who’s paying for all that.

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What strikes me most is the ephemeral character of these huge objects.  Statuary should evoke a sense of permanence — a big, heavy object, skillfully manipulated to resemble a great personage or event, laid deep in the land’s foundation to commemorate something important for future generations.  That’s part of why it was a shock to the national system when radicals ran around defacing them and tearing them down.

But now, in the capital, we’re subjected to the opposite: pop-up statues, quickly and relatively cheaply made, unremarkable in their craftsmanship, “commemorating” a flash-in-the-pan media event for the next five minutes or so, until they’re wheeled off to their next five-minute destination or destroyed.  The Iran War is kind of like this, too, with its fits and starts.  Statues, wars, elections, news cycles — everything is quick and up and gone, to tee us up for the next hit.

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“Art as protest” is not new, and it’s fine as far as it goes.  But I think Americans going about their day-to-days will benefit from devoting themselves to more permanent things, like their marriages and their families (“if you can keep it”).  Fine, not yet, because the midterms are right around the corner.  But we’ll get to it right after.

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Image via Raw Pixel.