The Tour de Destruction is a bike route around Washington, DC, that highlights the damage that Trump has done to the nation’s capital with his renovation projects and executive temper tantrums.
Distance: Eight Miles
Time: 1.5 hours
Directions: Google Maps
Take your own bike or rent one from Capital Bikeshare! There are CaBi stations at numerous spots along the route.
Lafayette Park
We begin across the street from the White House, in Lafayette Park. Trump has kept this historic landmark locked up behind a fence all year, supposedly for renovations.
New trees have been planted, the brick sidewalks have been replaced and they even got the fountains working again.
But the park remains closed, though a little slice of it is open so that tourists can stare through the mesh of a security fence at the White House.
If you visited in the past, you probably remember being able to walk right up to the White House fence. You can’t do this anymore.
Trump closed the park during his first term, too. Shortly after he left, I wrote about it for The Washington Post so this whole experience is some weird deja vu for me.
Reminder: this is a park that belongs to the public, not Trump.
The Kennedy Center
Bike west along the G St bike lane until you get to the Kennedy Center.
In a fit of childish pique, Trump closed the national arts center because a court said that he couldn’t put his name on it. Shows were cancelled, workers laid off and the building was secured.
A big tarp still hangs from it, hiding the spot where they removed Trump’s name from the structure. The public is not allowed to see the erasure, lest they get ideas that Dear Leader’s presence is merely transient.
Despite being closed, the money-spending goes on. Uniformed security guards protect the sacred tarp and gardeners refresh the greenery, despite the fact that the Kennedy Center has no visitors, other than the occasional jogger or cyclist.
Reflecting Pool
Next, follow the trail along the river to the Reflecting Pool.
You’ll pass gold statues on Memorial Bridge. There are four of them. Cost: $5 million. They were bronzes but Trump slathered them in gold paint, like butter dispensed on movie theater popcorn.
Set on tall columns, I don’t think drivers can even see them as they burn $5 gallon gas getting in and out of the city. You have to be on bike or foot to appreciate the garish waste.
But if there’s one project that embodies the stupidity, corruption and folly of the Trump regime, it is the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Dear Leader had a dumb idea: paint the bottom of the pool blue. No one dared tell him it was a dumb idea. No studies or tests were done. Work began immediately, with Trump promising that it would take a couple weeks and a couple million dollars.
More than six months and $16 million later, we are still at war with Iran, I mean, the Reflecting Pool. Like the war, it has escalated in time, cost and complexity with no end in sight.
And it has dragged in innocent victims, like David Hearn, the Olympian who the regime charged with felony vandalism (later dropped).
I’ve watched the lifecycle of the Reflecting Pool, from the moment in April when Trump’s handpicked crew began slopping paint around to the steamy days of summer when the water turned green to now as contractors scoop fallen leaves out of the water.
East Potomac Park
From the Reflecting Pool, follow Ohio Drive to East Potomac Park. By the FDR Memorial, you’ll pass a DC Water project that has prompted lots of conspiracy theories and another site that may be the future home of Trump’s “Garden of Heroes.”
As you enter East Potomac Park, you’ll see the golf course on the right and lots of tree stumps, where the regime illegally cut down trees before a judge stopped them.
And a giant, two-story tall mound, which contains debris from the East Wing of the White House. They dumped it on a golf course next to a river. And the debris probably contains asbestos.
East Potomac Park is much more than an inexpensive place to play golf. It’s a national park that was created by Congress for the benefit of the public and is also home to picnic areas, playgrounds and other recreational opportunities. The road which goes around the peninsula is popular with cyclists, runners and walkers. It’s also part of the Marine Corps Marathon.
Trump wants to level the site, including cherry blossom trees, and replace it with a championship-level golf course. No playgrounds, no space for runners or cyclists, just a fancy course for the rich.
A judge recently issued a temporary restraining order barring drastic changes to the park. Trump says he’s shutting it down on November 15. A constitutional crisis over a golf course seems silly but the core issue isn’t: can the President destroy a national park?
Freedom Plaza
Continue the Tour de Destruction with something lighter and more absurd: the Freedom Plaza Statue Garden.
To get there, go north on the 15th St Bike Lane, which the regime tried and failed to destroy for the America 250 celebrations. Local groups sued and beat them in court. This is why you fight.
Make a right on Pennsylvania Avenue to get to Freedom Plaza.
Trump took this open plaza, which offered a wonderful view of the US Capitol, and cluttered it with statues of dubious historicity. The regime is obsessed with statues.
Officially, it’s the 12 Soldiers of the Revolution Exhibition, but locals have dubbed it the statue garden or the chessboard.
It’s temporary, thank god, because the statues are really cheesy, depicting “patriots” looking like they just stepped out of a video game. They all seem to be running with guns. And one is of Caesar Rodney, the slaveholder whose statue was removed from Delaware in 2020.
Black Lives Matter Plaza
After returning to the 15th St bike lane, look to the left to get a glimpse of the White House Ballroom towering over the trees. It’s a massive slab of a building compared to the deliberately modest size of the Executive Mansion.
All this construction has made a mess out of the bike lane, too. The 15th St Bike Lane was designed to go through Lafayette Park, planners unable to conceive that a future tyrant would one day close the park.
Now, the bike lane ends at New York Avenue before restarting on the other side of the park. Go up the street or the sidewalk, make a left on I Street and then a left on 16th St, where you will pass the remains of Black Lives Matter Plaza.
In 2020, Mayor Bowser had “Black Lives Matter” painted in huge letters on the street. In 2025, she tore it up, before she even got a formal request from the regime. She surrendered in advance. In return, she got insults and occupation from the National Guard. This is why you don’t surrender.
Finish the Tour de Destruction in Lafayette Park. Take photos and record these moments for posterity – no telling what Trump could do to our monuments and landmarks in the last desperate days of the regime.
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