Donald Trump Throws Miserable Tribute To Himself On America's 250th Birthday
And Dom was there!
At around 7:30 p.m. on July 4, I was sitting in the Smithsonian Metro Station on the National Mall in Washington DC. Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 Great American State Fair had just been evacuated due to a burst of thunderstorms. People were watching the US Air Force Thunderbirds perform aerial stunts just over their heads when suddenly a voice boomed from speakers that everyone needed to seek shelter immediately.
The cheap vinyl tents covered in plaster and wood accents weren’t suitable for waiting out the storm. A medic was instructing “ambulatory people” to leave. Some of the flag-wrapped tourists began running toward exits, others aimlessly wandered around. Staff, random state police officers and national guardsmen told everyone to leave.
Inside the station, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority was still running trains full of people. They lumbered up the stairs, some in costumes, only to see a crowd of people attempting to wait out the storm. Nobody was telling them about the evacuation order. By 8:00 p.m., with the fate of the fair and fireworks in limbo, some tourists sheltering in the Metro began getting back on trains to their hotels.
A woman from Indiana drove nine hours to see the show. She could have watched the fireworks from home, she groused.
It had been a long, hot day. Temperatures easily exceeded 100º F in the shade. It was so hot around 2:00 p.m. I could feel the heat from the pavement through the bottoms of my boots. I spent much of the afternoon sheltering in Union Station, where there are water fountains and bathrooms.
There are still homeless people at Union Station, by the way. You might remember the big spectacle the Trump administration made of chasing them, and protesters, out last year with National Guard and federal agents. But they’re back. It’s not like they had any place else to go. The Trump administration is trying to cut funding for homeless outreach programs, and conservatives across the country are trying to criminalize homelessness.
National guardsmen are still here too. Most are friendly enough. Some have told me they’ve been ordered not to talk to the press. Many just stand around trying not to look bored as people thank them for their service.
Earlier in the day, members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front had showed up to walk around for about an hour or two. Their white pride parade didn’t last long, and they quickly retreated back out to the suburbs.
Apparently, the fair was closed at some point so people wouldn’t die in the heat. So, at around 5:00 p.m., when the fair reopened, the lines to get in were insane. One must have stretched for mile, snaking down Constitution Avenue. A guy in front of the National Gallery of Art told me he’d been standing in line for over an hour.
But now this whole thing had been deemed a National Security Event, so people were severely limited to what they could bring in. A small clear bag, an empty bottle of water, not much more than you could carry in your pockets. Anyone cutting in line was swiftly dealt with by sharp-tongued mob justice.
As a credentialed member of the press, I could feel the leering of the MAGA faithful as I cut through the throngs of people and strolled up to the special access security gate with all my cameras. I must not have seemed threatening because nobody bothered to search me. I was simply waved through.
Because all the musical acts dropped out after Trump took over the 250th celebration, the only music I heard seemed to be the standard Trump rally playlist. Think Kid Rock, “Ave Maria,” Abba. There was a terrible cover band playing dad-friendly butt rock, but nobody seemed to be paying attention. They were all paying attention to the flyovers and air shows drowning them out.
I couldn’t figure out what bugged me about the flyovers. I loved going to the annual air show at Andrews Air Force Base every year as a kid. And I’ve half-jokingly told friends and colleagues that I do, in fact, love jet noise.
Then I realized that Americans are the only ones who enjoy seeing these giant beasts tearing up the sky. For the rest of the world, the sight and sound of American jet fighters, bombers, or rotary aircraft is the sound of death. And while that may be appealing to some Americans who are as isolated in their geography as they are their politics, much of the world doesn’t see a sprawling military machine as hallmark of achievement the way they do, say, a functioning public healthcare system. Or a basic public transit system.
These are the people who still see Toby Keith as some kind of poet for songs about relocating cowboy boots and feeding beer to horses after a national tragedy that, according to a congressional report, would have been avoidable had it not been for the machinations of spiteful bureaucrats and greedy lawyers.
It’s the American Way.
Today is the only day it’s been busy. But it’s also the fourth of July. DC is always busy on the Fourth. I know this because I grew up here. When I was a kid, we brought coolers full of food, soda and beer onto the Mall. We’d sit in front of the Washington Monument all day, and watch the fireworks at night. It was free, fun and devoid of partisan politics.
Now the only fun you can have must be approved by the Trump administration.
When the all-clear was finally given to reenter the GASF, it was around 10:00 p.m. Citing an unnamed White House official, the Washington Post reported that the remainder of the celebration would have been canceled following the storms, but Trump overrode them.
The Trump team claims it had planned for the weather, but the slapdash look and feel of the tents, the free-for-all of water distribution from pallets, and the general lack of common sense and guidance in dealing with (increasingly) extreme weather suggests otherwise.
Festivities in cities across the country were either canceled or delayed to protect people from the dangerous heat. But Trump insisted on going ahead despite the very real and very obvious threats to public safety.
In order to “see the fireworks,” a staffer told me, one would have had to exit the Mall/GASF, walk several blocks around the security perimeter, and then renter a different, security zone controlled by the Secret Service. Another staffer told me that, because it was already almost 11:00, the entrance might be shut down. And Lee Greenwood was already on an even bigger stage in front of the Washington Monument doing the only thing Lee Greenwood does these days: introduce Donald Trump with the same, 40 year-old mediocre song.
When Trump was finally able to give the big speech just he impatiently waited all night for, he yelled at his captive audience. People who’d just suffered through one of the hottest days in DC’s recorded history were told by their president that he’d have waited until 4:00 a.m., and yelled at the empty field. As Trump claimed to have around 150,000 people in attendance, I turned around and began walking away.
I quietly muttered to myself, “One-hundred forty-nine thousand, nine-hundred ninety-nine.”
Excellent photos Dom!
You worked your ass off on this, must of been tough lugging cameras through the bad weather, heat and maga.
I seem to recall back in 1976 when the entire country was awash in genuine good feeling about celebrating the country's 200th birthday. Flash forward 50 years and we get some obese yelly narcissistic megalomaniac bitching because nobody is celebrating HIM enough.