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The United States is celebrating a jubilee: July Fourth is the 250th anniversary, or semiquincentennial, of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the foundational document for Western democracy.
Donald Trump, more than any president in the centuries since then, challenges some of the basic ideas of the document, which was written as list of complaints against the king of England.
The Declaration of Independence: Annotated 250 years later — during the Trump era
So it seems predictable that, rather than a Fourth of July celebration for Americans of all political persuasions, he’s advertising the massive fireworks display on the National Mall as “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all, a ‘TRIBUTE TO AMERICA.’”
Instead of popular music acts, most of whom pulled out of the show, the rally will feature military bands the president commands, and his own personal playlist.
In honor of “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” we’re likely to hear Trump’s favorite song, “YMCA,” by the Village People.
Who wants a Trump rally?
Even if close to half of voters hadn’t preferred his presidential rival, Trump’s approval rating, which is in the 30s, suggests that even some of those who voted for him might rather focus on the country and its ideals than the current president and his baggage.
Americans came together to declare independence, but they are divided over much else. Even this week, Supreme Court justices over the words in the Declaration of Independence as they split over whether the US Constitution protects the right of all people born in the US to be US citizens. (It does, according to the majority.)
Will the fireworks be worth it?
The fireworks display will be “THE LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY,” Trump said in a social media post. Freedom 250, the Trump-aligned group that has taken over the festivities on the National Mall, is looking to break the Guiness record, but it hasn’t said how much all of this is going to cost.
The Great American State Fair, Freedom 250’s monthlong event on the National Mall, has so far suffered from spotty attendance, logistical issues, at least one unfortunate appearance of a Confederate flag and the fact that not all 50 states are taking part.
A million people watched the 1976 fireworks show in DC
There was also an outsize fireworks celebration for the bicentennial in 1976, when reports suggested 1 million people gathered on or near the National Mall. Abandoned cars led to an epic traffic jam that lasted into the next day, according to the White House Historical Association. But the president back then, Gerald Ford, did not hold a rally, but rather squeezed events up and down the Northeast corridor. One of them was a speech outside , where another million people were gathered, according to a New York Times report.
It’s hard to imagine a million people gathering for either the fireworks show or a Trump speech in today’s environment, but recall that in 1976, the country was recovering from both Watergate and Vietnam.
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As with so much in DC, Trump took over
CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn wrote last week about how Trump’s takeover of DC’s festivities has fractured America’s birthday party. Ten years ago, Congress created and funded a bipartisan organization, America 250, to plan and execute celebrations across the country. Those are still going on, but Trump wanted something else. The White House, after staffing disagreements, set up Freedom 250 — a separate, public/private entity — to do things more to his liking, and under the watchful eye of the National Guard troops that are still deployed in DC streets.
Freedom 250’s celebrations have each sparked some controversy; hosting a UFC fight night on the White House lawn on Trump’s birthday, for example, was a gladiatorial way to commemorate democratic governance. Another Freedom 250 spectacle will be the IndyCar race through the streets of Washington in August.
Trump’s effort to rebrand the Washington, DC, events, is an opportunity to look around the rest of the country. America 250, the group created 10 years ago by Congress, has a list of committees planning events all over the place, including what they’re calling “America’s Block Party.”
PBS will turn to Williamsburg, Virginia, instead of DC
Virginia, like other states, is hosting its own events to commemorate the anniversary. This year, PBS, the public broadcaster for which Trump and Republicans cut taxpayer funding last year, won’t be airing the fireworks show from the National Mall, as it has for decades. Instead, PBS will air its July Fourth broadcast from Colonial Williamsburg, the historic town famous for actors who thoughtfully portray Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry in costume.
They’ll have fireworks and a drone show, but also lean into the history of the day, which is what they do every day in Williamsburg.
“We made a decision that we would operate independently of DC, which didn’t exist 250 years ago, and we would lead the nation once again,” said Carly Fiorina, honorary chair of Virginia 250 and chair of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
“I think it is fair to say that a Trump rally is not appealing to all Americans,” Fiorina, who ran against Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, told me in a recent phone conversation. “One of the things that you learn when you study our history is that America is bigger than any one man, even a president.”
In fact, some of the towering presidents of American history are those who gave up power
“George Washington as the first president, the so-called father of our nation, was offered the opportunity to become, in essence, a permanent president and monarch, and he declined,” Fiorina said, adding Washington also declined to run for a third term “specifically to make the point that America is bigger than any man, including a president.”
Trump visited the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota on Wednesday. Roosevelt, though wildly popular, chose to leave the White House rather than run for a third term in 1908, although Roosevelt tried, unsuccessfully, to come out of retirement in 1912.
Trump won’t have that option when he leaves office in 2029: The Constitution, the nation’s other founding document, forbids presidents from serving a third term.
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