Trump's Tawdry and Gaudy Birthday Party

: Jamie Stiehm on Jul 1, 2026

WASHINGTON -- No, friends, Romans, countrymen, it wasn't enough to murder the White House Rose Garden.

It wasn't enough to tear down its stately East Wing, where guests gathered and mingled. It wasn't enough to brandish "Donald J. Trump" over "John F. Kennedy" on the marble wall of the national performing arts center.

Oh, and he just closed the building, he says, for two years. Sure.

It wasn't enough to make historic Lafayette Square, in front of the White House, look like a prison, where he plans 47 trees in his honor, as the 47th president. It wasn't enough to take away a popular public golf course, where many Washingtonians learned to play, for an expensive club.

It wasn't enough to bring in nearly 5,000 National Guard soldiers in camo, all over the streets for the Fourth of July. In the Cleveland Park Metro, six soldiers appeared in one of our city's safest neighborhoods. Are we at Ground Zero, under occupation by the president of the United States? Feels like it.

For those on the Vineyard or the Cape, in Aspen or Malibu, at a Midwest Americana parade or in Santa Fe, Brooklyn, Boston or Philadelphia, I feel alone and abandoned.

But somebody has to witness this Fourth of July right here and now. And who better than a history girl born in Valley Forge, due on July 4? (I slept in.)

Even the bloodthirsty cage match on the sacred ground of the White House wasn't enough for Trump. Nothing is ever enough. I just walked the National Mall, where he's staged a tawdry and gaudy "state fair" on treasured real estate between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. In past years, the Smithsonian Institution organized a Folklife Festival open to all.

Well, coming from Wisconsin, I know from state fairs. Apple-cheeked children and their farm animals -- cows, goats and pigs, in particular -- are involved. The feeling is festive, a sense of coming together from all over the state, urban and rural parts.

We kids piled in, eager to go to Milwaukee to ride teacups until we couldn't stop laughing, and enjoy funnel cake to our heart's (or stomach's) content.

In Trump's faux fair, Army tanks line the Mall in place of children. Bicycle racks and security screenings block an easy entrance. The crowds are sparse, and the state exhibits are amateur hour compared to the Smithsonian's classy expertise. Just one more thing lost in Trump translation.

Gold symbols and fake columns adorn the fair, which offered "blessings" and country pop songs. The algae-green Reflecting Pool was blockaded. Yes, there was a Ferris wheel, a classic American invention, so there's that.

Making the nation's 250th birthday party a celebration of self was not enough for the insatiable appetite of Trump, busy fuming about losing the Supreme Court birthright citizenship case.

I ask myself how his presidential juggernaut could have been stopped, as the plot to scuttle the U.S. Agency for International Development (on his first day) and weaken the Pentagon and the National Institutes of Health became clear.

Is Trump really out for revenge against all of America for losing the 2020 election? He can't let that grudge go and has waged an all-out assault on our agencies and institutions, with more to come.

Here's the thing. If Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) were alive, he'd roar on the floor like never before and prevent his black-sheep family nephew Bobby from becoming health secretary.

As one of the greatest legislators in history, he'd devise strategies, coalitions and filibusters to put the word out to the public. American democracy is in a war within, with a president steeped in hateful posts -- night and day -- one who starts illegal wars, one who railroads Congress.

Knowing Kennedy's skills, he'd round up other giants: Sens. Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), Harry Reid (Nev.) and Arizona Republican John McCain.

Byrd was obsessed with the death of the Roman Republic, which led to the Roman Empire. He gave 14 floor speeches on the subject: "a turbulent stream flowing through dark centuries of intrigue and violence."

That's about where we the people are, near a tragic turn, 250 years after a providential July day in Philadelphia.

Don't let it happen.

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The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

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