If, like me, you are a bit too young to remember the 1976 Bicentennial, you probably haven’t spent much time worrying about the awkwardly named Semiquincentennial, better known as America’s 250th birthday. Until this week my knowledge of what these celebrations entail was limited to occasionally finding quarters featuring that colonial drummer guy and this joke from The Simpsons:
But with the countdown to America’s 250th officially kicking off on Thursday night, when President Donald Trump gives a speech at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, I decided it was time to vet this event for inclusion on my long list of things to worry about in the second Trump administration.
When the federal government began planning this yearlong celebration back in 2016, it was meant to be apolitical; President Barack Obama signed legislation establishing a bipartisan America 250 Commission. But now there’s one big question looming over the July 4, 2026, anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence: Exactly how Trumpy will this party be?
A slew of recent headlines suggest the celebration won’t be “lifting spirits” nationwide. “Fox News Vets Are Taking Over America’s 250th Birthday Party,” warns The Atlantic. “Trump Puts MAGA Spin on Plans for America’s 250th Birthday Bash,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Will Politics Derail America’s 250th Birthday Bash?” muses the New York Times.
I braced myself for the worst: mandatory Trump rallies, gilded tanks rolling through cities, a MAGA hat in every mailbox. But the events announced so far don’t sound that concerning. Here’s a summary from USA Today:
• America Innovates: A traveling tech exposition that will display the country’s greatest innovations.
• America Waves: An initiative to create events where Americans can come together and wave American flags.
• Time Capsule: A collaboration among all 50 states, and the District of Columbia, to collect items for a time capsule to be buried in Philadelphia on July 4, 2026.
• America’s Field Trip: A contest for students grades 3-12 to submit writing or artwork in response to the prompt, “What does America mean to you?” (available for the 2025-2026 school year in the fall).
• Our American Story: An oral and visual history effort to collect stories from everyday Americans, funded by Walmart (submit nominees to be interviewed on the America250 website).
• July 4, 2026 Activations: A national celebration in Washington, D.C.
How could anyone be upset about a flag-waving party? Well, first, we still don’t really know what this yearlong celebration will entail. As USA Today noted, “The full slate of America250 activities and projects have not been announced, but some are in the works.”
Second, it’s not so much the activities as who’s executing them. The America250 Commission established in 2016 has been marred by allegations of mismanagement and cronyism and even a settled sex-discrimination lawsuit (but hey, at least that all that dysfunction was bipartisan!). This gave Team Trump an opportunity to take over much of the planning. In January, the Trump administration established the Salute to America 250 Task Force (a.k.a. Task Force 250), which is chaired by Trump himself and made up mostly of officials from federal agencies. And the America250 Commission now includes a slew of Trump allies, whose resumes include the Trump campaign, Fox News, and the January 6 “Stop the Steal” rally. The Journal reports:
Recognizing there needed to be Trump-affiliated advisers working with America250, [Biden-appointed chairperson Rosie] Rios asked [Trump campaign co-manager Chris] LaCivita to join as a special adviser, and a wave of Trump allies came aboard.
Trump announced Justin Caporale, who orchestrated Trump’s 2024 rallies, would work on production for America250 events. Caporale’s production company, Event Strategies, was a contractor for the recent U.S. Army parade in Washington. Event Strategies was also listed on paperwork for the Stop the Steal rally ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Ari Abergel, a 25-year-old former Fox News producer who briefly served as a spokesperson for first lady Melania Trump, was tapped by the president to be executive director of the commission.
Abergel brought on Trump’s campaign fundraiser Meredith O’Rourke to assist with donor outreach and Monica Crowley, a former Fox News contributor who is now U.S. chief of protocol, to simultaneously be a spokeswoman. The website that runs RSVPs for the coming kickoff to America250 activities at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Campaign Nucleus, was founded by former Trump campaign director Brad Parscale.
The Trump administration has also “discussed partnering with conservative influencers and commentators on programming,” according to the Journal, and several conservative groups are already producing materials for the Semiquincentennial:
The White House is partnering with private organizations to create some of the materials and programming for the events, including PragerU, a conservative nonprofit that describes its mission as promoting “liberty, limited government and Judeo-Christian principles” through short videos, telling a story of achievement from “Moses to Trump,” as co-founder Allen Estrin put it.
The White House also worked with Larry Arnn, the president of Hillsdale College, a private, Christian, conservative liberal-arts college, and Wilfred McClay, a historian there, to produce a video lecture series called “The Story of America” that appears on the White House website. Arnn has been critical of progressive influence on the media, other universities and corporate America.
The official line from the Trump administration is that these events are all meant to unite the country. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told the paper, “Beginning in Iowa, this unifying, patriotic celebration will bring together families of all backgrounds to reflect on the accomplishments of those who helped make America the greatest country in the world.”
However, not all Trump allies got the messaging memo. Ari Abergel, executive director of America250, referred to Trump as a king in a statement knocking those who have expressed concerns about this celebration of American democracy.
“President Trump is the King of Patriotism. And when it comes to celebrating America, nobody goes bigger,” he said. “A few disgruntled individuals won’t stop us from making America250 the most patriotic celebration in American history.”
So while some of the events the administration has discussed — such as a “Great American State Fair” showcasing all 50 states and a July 4 ball drop in Times Square — sound fun, and inclusive of all Americans, it’s hard to believe that the Semiquincentennial won’t turn into a partisan, mean-spirited celebration of Trump and his MAGA movement. The president has tried to make everything from the Super Bowl to the American pope all about him; why wouldn’t the theme of America’s 250th birthday party be “Celebrating the Greatness of Donald Trump”?
But for the record, plenty of godless Democratic coastal elites would love to see a genuinely unifying celebration of America’s Semiquincentennial. To paraphrase another line from The Simpsons: Prove me wrong, Mr. President. Prove me wrong!
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