The National Park Service has announced what it calls the “Presidential Legitimacy Quotient,” a controversial new metric that will determine how a president is remembered by measuring the duration of their shadow on the Washington Monument during a state funeral.

“This is the culmination of three decades of data collection,” said Dr. Evelyn Halloway, director of Monument Shadowology, a newly created division within the National Park Service’s Office of Geopolitical Symbolism. “We found that presidents whose shadows intersected the monument’s base for more than 14 minutes during the eulogy phase demonstrated greater public sympathy in exit polls.”

Under the new proposal, a “Shadow Succession Index” will be calculated for every U.S. president who dies in office or is buried at Arlington. The index considers:

  • The exact minute the shadow falls on the monument’s limestone base
  • The angle of sunlight during the memorial procession
  • Whether the shadow “grazes” or “fully covers” specific architectural elements
  • The emotional resonance of the shadow’s movement during the flag-lowering ceremony

“For Lincoln, we’re estimating his shadow coverage would have been 87 percent optimal if the sun had been positioned differently,” Halloway told reporters. “We regret the sun’s position that day, but the data suggests 1965 would have yielded a 12-point increase in national sentiment.”

Critics call the proposal “shadow fascism.”

“It’s bureaucratic absurdity,” said Senator Marcus Thorne (D-Vermont). “The monument is meant to be a symbol of our nation, not a measuring stick for political approval. We’re turning sacred ground into a spreadsheet.”

Yet the bureaucracy is already preparing for implementation. The NPS has contracted with several solar path modeling firms to create “shadow optimization models” for future state funerals. A preliminary report suggests that the 2028 inauguration of a potential presidential successor could benefit from scheduling a memorial service during a “high shadow index” window, which has been tentatively calculated as 45 minutes after sunrise on the winter solstice.

The proposal has drawn particular ire from the Washington Monument’s Foundation, Inc., which released a statement saying, “The monument is not a clock, nor is it a political approval meter. We ask that this proposal be withdrawn immediately.”

However, spokesperson Dr. Halloway insisted, “The monument has always been about measurement. Look at the inscription at the top: ‘I AM THIS EARTH.’ We are now quantifying that earth literally.”

The new “Shadow Succession Index” will be publicly calculated and published. A prototype dashboard has been set up in the Visitor Center, where tourists can walk through a virtual simulation of how different presidents’ shadows would have fallen on the monument during their funerals.

“The experience is moving,” says Halloway. “You can see the shadow shift as you adjust the sun angle. It’s almost… poetic. Then you realize it’s all math.”

Meanwhile, the NPS is considering a “Shadow Legacy Tax” on any president whose shadow coverage falls below 70 percent of optimal. The collected fees would fund an endowment to preserve the monument’s limestone from future “shadow-induced structural degradation,” according to an internal memo.

The public reaction has been varied.

“I had no idea the monument had this much political weight,” said visitor James Carter, who spent 20 minutes in front of the new dashboard. “I didn’t realize presidents were this… measurable. It’s like they’re grading themselves on a report card. I think it’s genius.”

Other visitors expressed concern. “It makes me think our democracy is already broken,” said visitor Sarah Chen. “If we’re measuring how much a president’s shadow aligns with a monument, we’re admitting that our values are already quantifiable and monetizable.”

The NPS says the proposal will go into effect at the next state funeral, which they claim will be scheduled “optimally” based on shadow models.

For now, the monument stands, but its shadow no longer belongs to itself. It belongs to the bureaucracy that now claims to measure it. And in that measurement, the monument’s original purpose — to represent a nation’s enduring ideals — has been reduced to a spreadsheet.

But at least the spreadsheet is free.