There are national birthday celebrations and there are national birthday celebrations where the president is simultaneously the host, the guest of honor, the main attraction, and the organizing principle, and where a former official of his own party explains that he will not regret any of this because he is his own favorite thing. The former Republican National Committee communications director Doug Heye said exactly that to the Washington Examiner this morning, as an explanation rather than a criticism, which tells you everything about the current state of the explanation business.
The Great American State Fair opened Wednesday on the National Mall with pavilions from all 50 states, a 110-foot Ferris wheel, at least 45,000 attendees according to a figure Trump provided about his own event, and a warm-up set from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who addressed the crowd celebrating America’s 250 years of democratic pluralism and called the musicians who declined to attend “libtards,” which is a slur that was last in heavy rotation in middle school corridors around 2007 and which Duffy deployed at the national birthday party with the confidence of a man who has decided the moment calls for it. Six states declined to send pavilion participants: Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, and one additional state, all blue, all of whom described the event as politicized. The White House described their absence as political. Both sides are correct, which is the condition the event was designed to create.
According to the Washington Examiner, the White House spokesman Davis Ingle said: “From the Great American State Fair and Salute to America Celebration to the Patriot Games, Rededicate 250, and many other inspiring events, 2026 will deliver a powerful resurgence of patriotism and national pride under President Trump’s leadership.” The sentence about national pride ends with the phrase “under President Trump’s leadership,” which is the precise location of the disagreement with the six states.
Trump self-reported the attendance figure of 45,000 people, which made him the first president in history to issue a crowd count for his own birthday party for the country. Kellyanne Conway watched his speech and described it on Fox News as “inclusive” and evidence of Trump “extending an olive branch.” The speech that began within three minutes with an attack on Biden without using Biden’s name was described as an olive branch, by a woman whose job has always been to describe the thing as its opposite, and who at this point has refined the technique to something close to art.
The Reflecting Pool, which Trump’s administration renovated in preparation for this exact celebration, is still green.
When the unity celebration requires a slur for warmup and six states to skip the pavilions, what exactly is being unified?
Sources
Washington Examiner: America’s 250th becomes latest front in country’s political divide
Washington Examiner: Freedom 250’s Great American State Fair kicks off
Raw Story: Trump’s Great American State Fair off to rough start as fans walk out on his speech
