{"id":384875,"date":"2026-07-03T12:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T12:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/384875\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T12:13:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T12:13:13","slug":"trump-refashions-americas-250th-as-a-celebration-of-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/384875\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump refashions America’s 250th as a celebration of himself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Small towns across America had big plans to celebrate the nation\u2019s semiquincentennial this weekend. Local historical societies scheduled town square readings of the Declaration of Independence, hired bands to play patriotic tunes, organized parades and set up themed baking contests.<\/p>\n

But many of their most ambitious plans were scrapped after the Trump administration cut $100 million in federal funding<\/a> for humanities nonprofits and state councils at the start of its term. The decision severely hampered local planning for America\u2019s 250th anniversary, disrupting history projects, museums and educational programs nationwide.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Trump administration funneled tens of millions in federal dollars to Event Strategies<\/a>, the firm behind Trump\u2019s infamous rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021, to organize anniversary events throughout the nation\u2019s capital centered on President Trump.<\/p>\n

The result, historians say, has become a centralized, more politicized spectacle, marking the national milestone as a celebration of an imperial presidency rather than a revolution from kingly rule.<\/p>\n

The spectacular show that Americans will see features Trump at its center, culminating a year of concerted efforts by the president to put his face on passports and currency, national park passes and government buildings.<\/p>\n

\"Girls <\/p>\n

Members of the Dance4Life studio in Claymont, Del., prepares to march ahead of the Red, White, & Blue To-Do Pomp & Parade on July 2, 2026, in Philadelphia. <\/p>\n

(Al Drago \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Yet, beyond the noise of the nation\u2019s capital, historians and teachers, docents and curators, archivists, tour guides and reenactors have sustained the messy, organic discourse of the American story, less funded but no less vocal in their patriotism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way history has been argued since Trump returned to office has been a reminder that governments and political figures have remarkable power to shape a society\u2019s historical memory,\u201d said David Ekbladh, a history professor at Tufts University and author of \u201cLook at the World: The Rise of an American Globalism in the 1930s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s effort to control the anniversary narrative has reminded Ekbladh of one of George Orwell\u2019s most famous quotes: \u201cWho controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administration\u2019s clear signals that it can and will restrict funding to institutions seems to have muted the way many institutions, like museums and universities, have approached the anniversary,\u201d Ekbladh added. \u201cWith this said, Trump\u2019s own direct, personal use of the 250th has been less about articulating a clear view of the nation\u2019s history than using the moment itself to keep attention on him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House has taken a more active role in the festivities<\/a> than initially planned, setting up its own Freedom 250 project to supplement America250, a bipartisan congressional effort to celebrate the occasion.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

Fencing is seen around the Great American State Fair on the National Mall on Thursday. <\/p>\n

(Kevin Dietsch \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has directed funding to events centered on the president\u2019s attendance, primarily around Washington, and partnered with conservative organizations such as PragerU and Hillsdale College to present the country\u2019s founding story through a conservative Christian lens.<\/p>\n

Historians are in broad agreement that this year\u2019s celebration has garnered far less attention than the bicentennial, marked in 1976, which generated blanket media coverage and widespread national excitement.<\/p>\n

Andrew Rudalevige, a professor of government at Bowdoin College and author of \u201cThe New Imperial Presidency,\u201d attributed the lack of enthusiasm this time in part due to a more fragmented media landscape than existed 50 years ago, denying the country a \u201ccore curriculum\u201d and a shared story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a lack of patriotism, so much as a determination that no presidential administration should be able to center itself as the focus of that patriotism,\u201d Rudalevige said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot to celebrate in the text of the declaration. But that\u2019s not where the focus of the Freedom 250 efforts has been,\u201d Rudalevige said. \u201cIt would have been interesting to see what the bipartisan America250 initiative could have come up with if its funding and energies had not been diverted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is fenced off in preparation for Fourth of July fireworks.<\/p>\n

(Kevin Dietsch \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Trump has scheduled little national travel around the anniversary, visiting North Dakota<\/a> this week for an event that allowed him to debut a new version of Air Force One, donated by Qatar and outfitted to the president\u2019s tastes. Trump intends to keep the plane after leaving office for his personal use.<\/p>\n

The jet will fly over the National Mall alongside the Defense Department\u2019s most impressive equipment on Saturday, before the president delivers a speech in what is forecast to be a blistering heat wave. The evening will end, according to administration officials, with the largest fireworks display in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fundamental challenge that we face now is the fight between the historians \u2014 people who have been studying the past and who have been thinking about how to tell that story to the public \u2014 and government leaders over who gets to control that story,\u201d said Peter Kastor, chair of the history department at Washington University in St. Louis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who are really on the front lines are museum professionals, the operators of historic sites and schoolteachers,\u201d he said. \u201cThey face the responsibility for explaining the past to a general audience on a day-to-day basis, and they are the ones who most often face the backlash from people who want the story to be told differently.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Small towns across America had big plans to celebrate the nation\u2019s semiquincentennial this weekend. Local historical societies scheduled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[155345,105948,147638,8403,155347,7524,155346,22339,48,52,51,47,50,49,6607,1524,25751,3020,1519,1695,72],"class_list":["post-384875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-250th","tag-american-story","tag-anniversary-event","tag-celebration","tag-event-strategies","tag-federal-funding","tag-government-building","tag-historian","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-museum","tag-nation","tag-past","tag-president-trump","tag-trump","tag-trump-administration","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}