America at 250 US politics

Donald Trump hijacked America’s 250 and turned it into a ‘theatre of the absurd’

Trump, laying siege to freedoms and truth itself, is twisting America’s milestone birthday into a joyless occasion

• Americans: how do you feel about the country’s future after 250 years of independence?
• Tell us: were you born on 4 July?

David Smith in Philadelphia, Mon 29 Jun 2026 07.00 EDT

This is the room where it happened. The assembly room at Independence Hall in Philadelphia where, 250 years ago this week, a group of sweating, treasonous men broke from the most powerful empire since ancient Rome. Amid a summer of trial and error, delegates including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson ratified a flawed but aspirational document to declare their independence from the British crown. The date was 4 July 1776 – but it took nearly a month for all 56 delegates of the Second Continental Congress to formally sign on.

“I don’t blame them,” Maggie Burkett, a park ranger, told a group of about 40 tourists as they gazed at green baize tables adorned with books, letters, pipes and candles one recent afternoon. “These words on this page are treason, just as much as burning the king’s coats of arms was. By signing this document, you are literally risking your life. The 56 men who signed this document were brave. In my opinion, they were heroes.”

The anniversary of this date and this document should be cause for a unifying nationwide celebration. Yet two and a half centuries after a bloody revolution that humiliated King George III and installed George Washington as the first US president, the semiquincentennial has become just the latest cue for division, rancour and existential angst.

“There’s a sense of dread,” said Eddie Glaude, the author of America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries. “It’s as if it’s going to descend below kitsch. It’s going to be a collage of terrible myth-making.”

Two hours south of Philadelphia, in Washington DC, the official centre of the nation’s birthday party is, critics say, looking less like a dignified civic jubilee than a gaudy reality TV pageant.

Trump, who has been hyping this anniversary for years and has expressed glee that it falls in his second term, launched a project to beautify the capital, with statues scrubbed clean of graffiti and water flowing from long-neglected fountains. He even intends to build a triumphal arch that will dwarf the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

But in a metaphor that is almost too neat, the president has come unstuck with a $14.7m renovation of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on the National Mall. No-bid contracts for the work were awarded to vendors with past ties to the president. Within days of its completion, an algae bloom turned the pool water bright green while its “American flag blue” coating began to peel off. Trump has blamed the embarrassing debacle on mysterious vandals and threatened the alleged vandals with jail time.

This tone was set earlier this month when, on 14 June, coinciding with his 80th birthday, Trump commandeered the White House South Lawn to host brutal Ultimate Fighting Championship cage matches. He followed up last week on the National Mall with a formal kick-off for the Great American State Fair, in effect a Trump rally with military jets roaring overhead that was hastily arranged when previously announced performing artists withdrew over the event’s partisan nature.

Addressing the crowd, the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, railed against “those libtards that cancelled on us” while praising Trump as “the greatest president that’s ever existed in this country since George Washington”. The affair featured no Democrats and culminated with Trump’s familiar battle cry of “Make America great again” and signature dance to the Village People’s YMCA performed by the US Marine Band.

The state fair is running for 16 days, and all 56 states and territories are represented, including some that opted not to send a delegation because of Trump’s hands-on approach. The half-baked tribute to Americana – described by the Washingtonian as “sparsely attended and shockingly boring” – features a ferris wheel that was reportedly plagued by power cuts on opening day.

The mall will host a “Salute to America” celebration on 4 July itself, again starring Trump and an attempt to break the Guinness world record for the biggest firework display ever seen. In August IndyCar descends on the capital for the inaugural Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington DC.

We should be able to have the nation’s birthday without it somehow being an endorsement of this crazy man who happens to be in the White House

Jill Lepore

All of this has come about after America250, the official bipartisan commission established by Congress more than a decade ago, was elbowed aside in favor of Freedom 250, a Trump-aligned initiative. America 250’s modest ambitions include a time capsule with contributions from all 50 states, an essay contest for students and an America’s Block Party concert on 4 July featuring Queen Latifah, Chris Stapleton and the Smashing Pumpkins.

The upshot is that America’s milestone birthday feels particularly joyless, less a celebration of the world’s most powerful country than a case study in how a demoralised, self-doubting nation has fallen prey to culture wars and the narcissism of its leader. Trump – a uniquely divisive president laying siege to freedoms, institutions and truth itself – has proved to be the ultimate party pooper.

Speaking from a hotel across the street from Independence Hall, David Blight, a professor of American history at Yale University, said: “I don’t feel celebratory at all. I don’t know how to explain [Trump’s] vanity projects any better than anybody else. This is who he is. He’s not unlike Mussolini, who wanted to leave his mark all over Rome. It’s like theatre of the absurd.”

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