The preparations for national festivities to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, which was proclaimed on a hot, sweltering day in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, began on an ominous note several weeks before the giant fireworks display crowned the day’s celebration in the nation’s capital.
Trump, who imagines himself to be a brilliant urban designer, had insisted on changing the color of water in the long rectangular reflecting pool that is located between the Washington Monument, a tall white marble obelisk honoring the nation’s first president, and the classical Greek temple-like structure to memorialize President Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the country during the U.S. Civil War (1861-65). Depending on where one stands on the expansive grassy grounds of the National Mall, one can see either of the two monuments reflected in the clear waters of the shallow pool, which lends classical grace to the setting.
Trump wanted to change the color of the reflecting pool to an “American flag blue” for the 250th anniversary celebrations. So, he offered a $14 million, no-bid contract to the company that services his own properties to recover the pool lining with a plastic-based paint. Immediately after the project was completed, the waters, pumped in from the nearby Tidal Basin, an inlet of the Potomac River, turned a dark green due to algae that bloomed during a Washington heat wave.
Embarrassed by the results, Trump ordered the pool to be cleaned up immediately. One solution was to pour gallons of hydrogen peroxide into the water to kill the algae, which caused the paint to bubble up and peel off. Never one to admit his mistakes, Trump, offering no proof, claimed that vandals had cut a 350-foot slice in the sealant, even though the week before, he had insisted that the reconstruction was so well done that a sharp knife could not damage the work.
As curious visitors passed by the pool to see the chaos that Trump’s reckless plans had caused, David Hearn, a three-time Olympian whitewater canoeist, stopped on a bike ride to verify if reporting on the pool was accurate. As he reached into the waters to touch floating paint chips, officials from the National Park Service arrested him, claiming he had damaged the pool lining with his bare hands. Hearn currently faces up to ten years in prison for allegedly destroying government property. The case has become yet another example of Trump’s strategy to use the Department of Justice to punish anyone who dares to challenge his power or his megalomaniac claims that he is the most brilliant president in U.S. history.
Trump’s hubris was also on display on the eve of the independence celebrations at Mount Rushmore, another national monument thousands of miles away from Washington, D.C., in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Between 1927 and 1941, sculptor Gutzon Borglum carved the 60-foot-tall faces of U.S. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln into the granite of the hill. Since early in his first term, Trump has mused about having his own image carved into the rock to celebrate his presidency. However, the geological experts in the National Park Service have warned that any changes to the monument could cause the entire façade to crumble. Nonetheless, a conservative Florida Republican Congresswoman has introduced a bill to enable Trump to fulfill his fantasy, although the proposed legislation is unlikely ever to be voted into law.
Still, the location was the perfect setting for Trump to kick off the July 4th weekend festivities, as it suggested that the chief executive equaled, if not surpassed, his renowned predecessors. Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore was filled with patriotic boasting and 1950s Cold War rhetoric. “Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty,” he claimed. “It is the greatest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, or even 9/11.”
Democratic Socialists have been gaining ground and votes in the United States.
These bewildering affirmations are so out of touch with reality and a normal reading of U.S. history that they suggest that the president’s mental state is deteriorating as fast as the paint in the reflecting pool. Moreover, his political tirades against the Democratic Party are reminiscent of 1950s McCarthyism, when a Wisconsin Senator made unfounded claims about the infiltration of communists into the U.S. government.
They are also fueled by the recent election of members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to be Democratic Party candidates in the upcoming November Congressional elections. Three of these insurgents, endorsed by New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose parents are Indian Muslim immigrants from Uganda, defeated more moderate Democratic Party stalwarts, provoking a recent inner-party debate about the best way to challenge Republicans.
Founded in 1982, the Democratic Socialists of America was a merger of various social-democratic organizations that work within the Democratic Party to push it to the left. A relatively small political grouping until Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid, the DSA grew from 6,000 members in 2015 to 100,000 in 2026.
The DSA’s program, not unlike those of European Labor and Social Democratic Parties, also includes a strong pro-Palestinian position that has caused some divisions among Democratic Party leaders who defend Israel’s right to exist. DSA candidates are particularly attractive to young voters, especially those living in large urban areas, who are critical of the moderate positions of many in the Democratic Party leadership.
These more middle-of-the-road politicians counterargue that while more left-wing positions may be popular in New York, Los Angeles, or Washington, Democratic Party candidates challenging Republicans in more conservative areas of the country have no chance of winning with DSA’s program. They insist that the only way to gain control of the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate this year is to present solutions to problems that do not alienate more moderate independent voters frustrated with Trump’s erratic rule, blatant corruption, and failed economic and foreign policies.
Trump’s Anti-Communist Witch Hunt
Nonetheless, Trump’s rhetoric evokes latent and embedded anti-communism within a conservative swath of the public. He combines this sentiment with an age-old discourse that the United States has been and always will be an international exception, a bastion of democracy, and the “greatest country in the world.”
Moreover, in the Mount Rushmore speech, another on the night of July 4th at the National Mall, and in almost all other recent presidential declarations, Trump insists that the solution to the nation’s problems is the passage of the Save America Act, which is designed to discourage or prevent millions of voters from participating in upcoming elections.
Trump insists that the purpose of the legislation is to prevent undocumented immigrants from voting in U.S. elections. However, there are virtually no recorded incidents of voter fraud by residents who are ineligible to vote. Yet the name of the proposed bill, the Save America Act, is built on the xenophobic and anti-immigrant sentiment, fueled by Trump since 2011, when he insisted that Barack Obama was not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible to run for the presidency.
The real reason for the law is to ensure that millions of poor and working-class citizens who tend to vote Democratic do not participate in the upcoming elections by demanding that they show proof of their citizenship. Unlike Brazil, the United States does not have a national identification card, and other proofs of identity do include one’s citizenship status. Millions of low-income potential voters do not have birth certificates, and ever larger numbers do not own passports. Under this proposed law, women who have married and changed their names would have to provide additional documentation to prove their right to vote. It is yet another way that Trump is trying to manipulate the system through voter suppression to avoid an electoral defeat in November.
So instead of promoting a unified, non-partisan national celebration lauding the country’s achievements over the last two and a half centuries, the July 4th event turned into a political rally to promote Trump’s plan to ensure he retains control over Congress through anti-communism, anti-immigrant hysteria, and voter suppression.
To do so, Trump hijacked the nonpartisan United States Semiquincentennial Commission, known as America250, and redirected congressionally allocated funds to his own Freedom 250 to promote his presidency rather than the nation’s common legacies. He organized a sixteen-day Great American State Fair on the National Mall that was a complete flop, both because many entertainers declined to participate and because attendance at the booths lining the Mall promoting the different states of the union was low. Though not a reason to blame Trump, a major heat wave and summer thunderstorms didn’t help matters.
The U.S. Supreme Court Empowers Trump
Trump’s enthusiasm about the July 4th celebration was boosted by the fact that, in the week before the national celebrations, the U.S. Supreme Court decided two other cases that are a blow to U.S. democracy. One granted political parties the right to collect unlimited funds from wealthy donors, which in the short term will benefit Republicans. Another decision gave Trump the unlimited power to appoint members of hundreds of independent boards and agencies originally designed to oversee government regulations and procedures without undue partisan influence.
A third decision reaffirmed a clear interpretation of the Constitution that grants citizenship rights to anyone born on U.S. soil. This close 5-4 decision, which upheld the conventional interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, could, however, be overturned if one of the liberal members of the Supreme Court is replaced by a Trump appointee in the last two years of his term.
Even the great fireworks display at the end of Trump’s partisan July 4th speech failed to end as planned. In the grand finale, so many rockets were launched simultaneously that they created a thick smoky haze that obscured viewers who had patiently waited for hours to see the red, white, and blue bursts of light flashing through the air.
To quote William Shakespeare, both Trump’s declaration about the U.S. past and the public entertainment he organized, including the firework display, were “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
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