It didn’t have to be like that.
Photo: Bryan Dozier / Shutterstock

A fence is going up in the White House today to keep protesters at bay on election night and beyond. In every news report, the President’s press office was quoted as “not scalable”. It resembles the barrier erected in June after protests thundered through American cities. It’s also known as an “anti-climb” fence, which is made of welded wire mesh that is so tightly woven that it’s impossible to gain a foothold – and very difficult to cut. In the summer, the fence quickly turned into a stunning crowdsourced public art installation marked by demands for justice. It won’t be easy to get that close on election day.

For decades, the secret service has been calling for an ever wider security belt around the White House. The most visible change was in 1995, when Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the building was permanently closed to traffic shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing. In the Obama years, the Times announced a redesign of the fence with an almost carefree tone: “Wanted in the White House: a fence that says stop! (With Curb Appeal) “- but when his successor took office, the national sentiment had changed. There are now two wrought iron fences around the White House, one on the edge and one on the sidewalk. There are crowd control barriers made of curved black steel. There are monolithic white panels that look like cheap Home Depot kitchen cabinets with a neoclassical panel shape. There are corresponding traffic barriers made of white concrete. In a July photo, the fences alternate, black and white, layers of further isolation from reality.

Fences have become the hallmark of the Trump presidency – a weak border wall that does little and that Mexico definitely didn’t pay for, chain-link cages for children, random barriers around public buildings made of concrete blocks covered with barbed wire loops, the array of defenses all around Trump Tower. After four years of trying to keep people out, his defensible space has shrunk, a constricting web of non-scalable wire mesh, and Trump barricades himself with a deadly virus and (tomorrow night for the East Room Election Night Bash) hundreds of his closest friends and trailers. He really locked himself up.

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