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THE GREAT AMERICAN STATE FAIR IS A GREAT TRUMPIAN DISASTER  
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Alex Shephard
July 1, 2026
The New Republic
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_ The debacle on the National Mall captures an administration in free
fall—and a president who is only interested in celebrating himself.
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Visitors at the Great American State Fair, Andrew Leyden/Getty Images


 

“There are tons of people here,” said
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former TV quack who now runs Medicare and Medicaid, at the Great
American State Fair on Monday. He was speaking with Dean Cain, another
former TV man—he played Superman on ABC in the 1990s—who has acted
as a kind of hype man for the event, ostensibly a celebration of
America’s 250th birthday, that is currently taking place on the
National Mall. 

Oz seemed to know he was lying—there were not tons of people there.
“This is a huge space and it’s just going to be more and more
crowded as the week goes on,” he added. He’s right that it’s a
huge space, but videos showed he was speaking to a sparse crowd of
maybe 100. Cain later shared a picture
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of the Ferris wheel where you can literally count the attendees. There
are a few hundred. 

 
Just as President Trump insists his lackeys dress like him, he also
demands they adopt his Norman Vincent Peale–inspired embrace of
positive thinking
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is to say, the refusal to acknowledge politically inconvenient truths.
But it’s hard to argue with the wealth of video and photographic
evidence of the Great American State Fair. It may very well get more
crowded, but right now it’s a flop
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That’s no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention to this
administration, which is itself a total failure—a group of losers
and buffoons so incompetent they … well, can’t even put on a state
fair. If they can’t even manage a corn maze, no wonder they’re
losing a war.

But the Great American State Fair is also failing because it’s the
reflection of a president who has no substantive story to tell about
the country he leads. While the U.S. is meant to be celebrating its
semiquincentennial, Trump can only tell a story about himself. The
centerpiece of the fair, after all, is a cheap scale model of a
massive triumphal arch Trump hopes to build near Arlington National
Cemetery. What triumph does that arch celebrate? When CBS News’s Ed
O’Keefe asked Trump whom the 250-foot-tall structure is for, he
pointed at himself
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and said, “Me.” The same could be said of the fair, the war, and
so much else that this administration has done—while the World Cup
offers a fitting counterpoint.

History, at least in an abstract sense, has always been a part of
Trump’s political project. He did not invent the slogan that gave
the name to his movement—Ronald Reagan used
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“Make America Great Again” in his 1980 campaign—but he now owns
it. Of course, the genius of those four words for Trump is that they
don’t really mean anything. They harken back to an earlier,
supposedly rosier period without actually saying what period that is.
It’s not hard to extrapolate, given Trump’s long history of
racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, that he is gesturing at a past when
white supremacy went unquestioned. But the statement’s utility as a
political slogan is entirely dependent on its vagueness. Trump wants
to return America to greatness. When was it great? Let’s not get
into specifics. 

Trump, of course, has no genuine interest in history, not even
America’s. Although some observers have floated supposed models for
his presidency—Andrew Jackson in Trump’s first term
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William McKinley in his second
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has never expounded knowledgeably on Jackson’s populism or
McKinley’s protectionism, only gesturing at them half-heartedly in
an attempt to explain his own xenophobia and imperial ambitions. No,
Trump is only interested in history to the extent that he will feature
prominently in it. He wants to be seen
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“great man” who changed the world.

This unbridled narcissism is how you get a fiasco like the Great
American State Fair and the larger project of which it is a part,
Freedom 250—an organization that Trump created despite the fact that
Congress had already created an organization
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America250, for the purpose of celebrating the country’s
anniversary. The primary purpose of Freedom 250, which is not subject
to congressional oversight and does not have to disclose its donors,
is the elevation of Trump and his political movement. That’s why so
many musicians withdrew from performing at the Great American State
Fair, and organizers had to turn to Kash Patel’s girlfriend
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With just a few days to go before America’s “birthday,” Freedom
250’s most notable event so far was the UFC fight
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the White House lawn on Trump’s actual birthday.  

Under a different administration—one helmed by Kamala Harris, say,
or even a doddering Joe Biden—it’s not hard to imagine a
different, nonpartisan celebration of America’s 250th. The textbook
narrative of American history has been increasingly contested on the
left, so such a celebration would not have been without minor
controversy, whether genuine or manufactured. But it would have
actually reckoned with this nation’s history. It also would have
featured much better music, and perhaps wouldn’t have attempted to
gouge visitors with $25 pretzels
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Of course, there is another celebration happening in America at the
same time as the debacle that is Freedom 250: a World Cup that’s
primarily being hosted by blue cities. That tournament has, like
everything else, been marred
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by the Trump administration’s incompetence and maliciousness. But it
has largely been what the Great American State Fair ostensibly wants
to be: a mass celebration where people come together in a spirit of
unity and togetherness. 

Of course, the tournament’s attendees—in spite of the Trump
administration’s best efforts—aren’t just coming from all over
America, but the world too. Still, if you look at stadium audiences or
fan fests—or even just videos of fans celebrating in the street
after their team wins, as happened
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in Queens last night—you can see a different story about America
than Trump is trying to tell. This is not the story of an egomaniacal,
fascist president who dreams of an all-white America, but of a country
that embraces foreigners with generosity and respect. This July 4,
that’s the only story we should be celebrating.

_Alex Shephard is senior editor of The New Republic, where he has
covered politics and culture since 2015. His work has also appeared
in New York, GQ, The Atlantic, The Nation, and other
publications. _

* Great American State Fair
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* U.S. failure
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* Donald Trump
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* nihilism
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