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Lincoln Memorial Becomes Stage for Political Theater It Was Never Built For

James Rodriguez 0 comments 5 min read
Lincoln Memorial Becomes Stage for Political Theater It Was Never Built For

The Lincoln Memorial was designed as a temple to democracy, not a backdrop for power plays. Its architect, Henry Bacon, made choices that were deliberate and restrained. He selected 87 steps to echo the "four score and seven" from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. He topped the structure with 36 Doric columns, the simplest Greek order, symbolizing the states of the Union at Lincoln's death, even those that had rebelled. No gilt. No unnecessary ornament. Nothing to distract from the moral clarity of the space itself.

The geometry matters. The Memorial faces the Capitol across the length of the Mall, as if in conversation with power. Its proportions feel balanced and open. An earlier design by Clark Mills would have ringed the monument with equestrian statues, projecting conquest. That was rejected. Bacon understood that restraint was the point.

Lincoln himself, a century before the Memorial was built, seemed to envision it. In an 1858 speech in Lewistown, Illinois, he spoke of a "temple of liberty" with "fair symmetry of its proportions." He was imagining something pure, anchored in the Declaration of Independence and its egalitarian promise.

Since its 1922 dedication, the Memorial has drawn people seeking moral clarity. Marian Anderson sang there in 1939 after being barred from Constitution Hall. President Harry Truman spoke there in 1947 about civil rights. And on August 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to a vast crowd, invoking Lincoln's name and vision.

The space shaped these moments. They shaped it in return. The Memorial became a symbol of what America could be when aligned with its founding principles.

That's precisely why it now seems to draw those who reject those principles. In 2019, a "Salute to America" filled the Mall with military hardware, the kind of military spectacle Pope deliberately excluded from his design. The president delivered a 46-minute speech without mentioning Lincoln. He later claimed to have drawn a larger crowd than King's 1963 gathering, a boast the Reflecting Pool did little to confirm.

This weekend brings another event. The Lincoln Memorial will serve as backdrop for a Friday night UFC weigh-in and press conference ahead of a cage fight planned for the White House lawn. Gladiators, not in the Colosseum, but steps away from a temple meant to inspire unity.

The Memorial will endure. Brick and marble survive foolishness. So does the symbolism it carries, even as it gets trampled. But there is something worth noting about the choice to use it this way. The founders of the Declaration of Independence never imagined their words would be mocked at the foot of a memorial built to honor them. Jefferson and Adams, in letters exchanged in 1813, discussed whether they should air their grievances as "gladiators in the Arena of the newspapers." Jefferson's answer was firm: nothing could induce him to it. He wanted no part of that kind of spectacle.

The Lincoln Memorial was always supposed to inspire better versions of ourselves. The question now is whether anyone is still listening.

Author James Rodriguez: "A building designed to evoke the best of America is being used as a prop for the opposite. That's not politics as usual, that's desecration with a purpose."

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