On Tuesday, First Lady Melania Trump will face the Republican National Convention from the newly renovated White House Rose Garden, a non-public assignment from the First Lady. The World of Twitter went crazy over the weekend when the tweeters joked that the new rose garden, without roses and other flowers, was a metaphor for Trump’s management: without diversity, no color, a parade floor framed only by white columns.
The rose lawn was created by the first girl Ellen Wilson, President Woodrow Wilson’s first wife in 1913, to reposition the colonial lawn created through the wife of President Theodore Roosevelt, the first girl Edith Roosevelt. The famous First Lady Jackie Kennedy enced with the help of landscape designer Rachel Lambert Mellon in 1962 to create what most of us know as White House Rose Garden, a lush lawn with flower beds full of colors and roses. The presidents used the space for press conferences, weddings and special occasions, as well as a contemplative position in difficult times.
First Lady Melania Trump sought to modernize the turf infrastructure, adding audiovisual equipment, cameras, paving, drainage and lighting, all of which probably needed improvement. But he got rid of ten apple trees covering the colonnad and exchanged roses and colorful flowers for white roses, cream, pale yellow and pale pink. The result, while intending to return to Mellon’s design, is a pale reflected image of the story. Now it turns out to be largely a TV scene or a gun yard, devoid of texture, color or interest. One can easily believe full chairs on Tuesday night adorned with unmasked fans, sitting too close; supporters on a vegetable lawn that belongs to the American people, not to a bachelor party. In fact, while the Hatch Act would possibly authorize the president and the first girl to use the White House for political events, any staff who can also provide assistance cannot do so under this law, making land use more than problematic.
Roses and rose grass have a special meaning in literature culture and in Washington. In literature, we all know Shakespeare’s famous word Romeo and Juliet that “a rose under some other call would have such a sweet smell.” Many scholars think that Juliet tells Romeo that even if she had any other calls, she would still be charming or that even if she is from Montague’s opposite space, she is still the love of her life. More generally, we use the word to imply that topics are what is anything, not what is called. So, whatever Melania Trump’s lawn call, we look at the new rose lawn and see it for what is, dark, soulless, austere; not the rose lawn of our reminiscence or the colorful soul of our future.
The rose, named our national flower through President Ronald Reagan, has never seemed so lifeless. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, an economic recession, the need for racial justice and climate justice, it is also strange to remake the rose garden. Perhaps if President Trump had acted as president of the entire United States, perhaps if he and Melania had opened the door to all Americans, we might think that a little good-looking in difficult times would make sense. But the geometry of the revised garden, the equality of its cobblestones, contradicts the inequality of our time; allegedly mocking the chaos caused by the Trump administration.
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In 1967, singer-songwriter Joe South wrote the song “Rose Garden,” called “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” It has become a good luck crossover when Lynn Anderson recorded it in 1970, even though the manufacturer did not think that a woman who made a song would sell it. The opening words seem to be adapted to our time. “I’m sorry. I never promised you a rose garden. Besides the sun, sometimes it’s going to have to rain a little. Our minds are really tempered through the difficult times in which we live. And, if the weather forecast is right, it may rain more than a little in our country this week. So, if we need to have a rose garden, then it deserves to be ours: ambitious and beautiful, varied and divine, open to all and illuminating the realities in which we live with hope for the leader who may be offering some sun.
Wendy R. Sherman, a professor at Harvard Kennedy School and director of its Center for Public Leadership, is a member of the USA TODAY Board of Taxpayers and “Not for the Pusillanimous: Lessons in Courage, Power, and Perseverance.” Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs from 2011 to 2015 and led U.S. negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal. Follow her on Twitter: @WendyRSherman