Most people have probably experienced the disappointment of getting a birthday present that wasn’t a good fit or didn’t reflect much care on the part of the giver. Now multiply that feeling by millions. That’s how I feel watching the way Trump and his team have hijacked, corrupted and otherwise botched our nation’s 250th birthday.
The milestone anniversary of the Declaration of Independence should have been a nonpartisan national moment of reflection on our history. It could have and should have been a celebration of our survival and progress. It could and should have been a shared recommitment to building a nation in which democratic values are thriving, and the principles of the declaration and the promises of the Constitution are a reality for everyone in America.
Some of that is actually happening — in schools, communities and museums around the country. And some of those activities are sponsored by America 250, the organization created with bipartisan support from Congress a decade ago to lead the commemoration.
But that didn’t work for Trump, who is out to purge public conversation of anything that doesn’t make him feel or look great. He demands glitz, bombast and, above all, opportunities for self-aggrandizement.
So last year he issued an executive order creating his own Task Force 250, which is working alongside the private Freedom 250 to raise corporate funds and organize Trump’s flashy pet projects, like the upcoming UFC cage fight on the White House lawn on the president’s 80th birthday.
Among the projects backed by Trump’s Freedom 250 are an evangelical Christian religious revival tour and an event on the national mall that was dominated by Christian nationalists and other MAGA figures who supposedly “rededicated” America to God. Having the government sponsor those inherently exclusionary events sends the message that the only real Americans are a certain kind of MAGA-minded Christian, leaving out millions of Christians as well as people of other faiths and those without any religious affiliation.
If we had better leadership, we could be doing something very different. We could be celebrating the freedom, peaceful pluralism and religious flourishing that the separation of church and state has allowed and encouraged.
But that’s not the leadership we have in charge right now. Trump’s team has reportedly withheld millions of dollars Congress intended to support America 250’s nonpartisan efforts and redirected them to projects under Trump’s control. If you have $2.5 million to spare, you can apparently buy your way into a speaking role on July 4.
The mess playing out behind the scenes splashed into public view when some musicians set to perform in Freedom 250’s concert series began to pull out, saying they had signed up for a nonpartisan celebration of the country, not to be props for the glorification of Trump.
When the cancellations became public, Trump responded in typically gracious fashion, insulting performers his own group had booked and fuming on his social media platform that the concert series should be replaced with a giant Make America Great Again rally where he, the “Number One Attraction anywhere in the World,” could recycle his own greatest hits of narcissism and grievance.
On Friday, Trump announced that Lee Greenwood, the singer of “God Bless the USA,” and opera singer Christopher Macchio would perform. It isn’t a surprise; they are both regulars at MAGA rallies and Republican Party events.
In the laughable kind of dictator-worship we witness at those humiliating Cabinet meetings. An Interior Department spokesperson responded to questions about Freedom 250 by praising Trump as “the most iconic and accomplished president in the history of our great nation.” Along similar lines, sycophantic Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is pushing for the creation of gold coins and $250 bills featuring Trump’s face — with Trump’s glowering mugshot set to grace the latter.
This is as sad as it is absurd. And it could have been so different.
I can’t help but think about the legendary television producer, citizen-activist and the founder of my organization, Norman Lear. When he and his wife Lyn found out in 2000 that a rare original printing of the Declaration of Independence — printed in secret on July 4, 1776, and carried to the colonies to spread the word — was available, they bought it.
They didn’t hang it over their mantle. They sent it on a tour of the country so that people of every faith and political leaning could experience the reverence and awe they felt in its presence.
Over the next decade, it visited 100 cities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It traveled to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, the Super Bowl in New Orleans, the Daytona 400 NASCAR race, Mount Rushmore, the Oklahoma City National Memorial and several presidential libraries. What a gift to Americans it was.
That is the kind of broad-minded and public-spirited patriotism we should be sharing with one another this year. And I am sure Americans will be doing that at picnics and July 4 concerts in communities across the country, even if Trump is determined to treat it as an extended birthday celebration for himself.
