Donald Trump’s favorite thing about America is that he lives in it. It’s hard to point to a president that wasn’t self-absorbed, of course — Obama had an ego on him, as well — but “President DJT,” as he signs his tweets, takes personal pride to a new level.
Trump has put his personal stamp on every American institution within his reach, and the celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary, known confusingly as the semiquincentennial, is no exception. Instead of a celebration of the country, Trump’s “Freedom 250” celebrations honor a particular vision of America — one set by one man, organized largely to boost his ego and flex his power over our political system and way of life.
Trump’s co-option of the semiquincentennial has taken many forms — slow and gradual ones like the subtle rebranding of the event, and bizarre, brazen ones like placing his name and likeness on new U.S. passports, coins, and other items. It’s a fitting demonstration of the current state of America: at the end of its imperial rope, a society that has been degraded so far by its own excesses that the Founding Fathers would barely recognize it now.
Here are some of the ways Trump made our country’s 250th birthday all about himself.
Neutering the America 250 commission and replacing it with Freedom 250
You need time to plan a good party. In 2016, the last year of the Obama administration, the nation began looking ahead toward the 250th anniversary celebrations. Congress established a commission that would theoretically oversee planning of the festivities a decade in advance, to ensure that everything went well regardless of who was in power.
And then Trump happened. In 2025, upon his return to the White House, Trump effectively neutered America 250, and created his own party planning committee: Freedom 250. Where America 250 was supposed to be nonpartisan, Freedom 250 is Trumpian, stuffed with allies of the president and focused on projects that reflect the presidents’ personal style. To top it all off, the funds originally allocated to America 250 have largely been diverted to Trump’s commission, which is not subject to the same oversight and appropriations restrictions as the original group.
Starting the celebration on his birthday with UFC fights at the White House
Trump kicked off the American 250 celebrations not in the month of July, when the actual semiquincentennial falls, but in the middle of June. Specifically, he picked the weekend of June 14, his 80th birthday, to really go all out, hosting a unique Ultimate Fighting Championship event on the grounds of the White House. The event, according to the UFC, was a massive success — they certainly sold enough ads around it — but it was profound how little that had to do with the actual fights themselves. Sure, there was a shock upset when Justin Gaethje beat the Spanish phenom Ilia Topuria, but the real star on display was Donald Trump himself.
Putting his face on a new anniversary edition of the passport
Trump has spent much of his second term obsessing over branding, particularly putting his name and face on every piece of public property he could get his hands on. If seeing Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center or his face on the Department of Interior wasn’t enough, Trump wants to make sure you can’t escape him — even if you leave the country.
In order to commemorate the 250th, the president ordered the creation of 40,000 special edition passports featuring the image of a glaring Trump in front of the Declaration of Independence. An image which — according to Trump — conveys the message, ‘Welcome, but be good.”
Putting his face on “America 250” National Park passes
One of the nation’s greatest treasures are its beautiful landscapes and natural environmental diversity. Amber waves of grain, purple mountains’ majesty, you know the song. One of the ways Americans can enjoy the natural splendor of the country is through its national parks, and the National Parks Service offers a slate of passes for locals and travelers looking to enjoy public lands. The passes have historically featured photos of wildlife or famous American landmarks. But this is Trump’s America, and on the semiquincentennial he wants you to reflect not on the wild beauty that marked these lands centuries before the settlers, and will likely outlast the nation, but on himself.
To add insult to injury, Trump also has been raiding the coffers of the National Parks Service to fund a series of vanity projects for himself. A New York Times report found that nearly $60 million in Park pass revenue was going directly towards Trump’s repairs to Washington, D.C.’s ornamental fountains, and another $7 million is funding the disastrous Reflecting Pool renovation. The administration is being sued over it, but outdoorsmen across the country have already found themselves carrying Trump around in their wallets, all so he can freshen up the finishes on some of D.C.’s ceremonial hardware.
His administration trying to put his face on a $250 bill
If Trump’s favorite thing in the world is solid gold, his second favorite is cash money. Before becoming president and adopting “Y.M.C.A.” as his de-facto anthem, Trump’s theme song was quite literally “For the Love of Money” by The O’Jays.
These days, Trump has a lot more power than when he was on The Apprentice, and he wants to put his face on America’s currency. The Trump administration and the U.S. treasury proposed issuing a 250th anniversary $250 dollar bill featuring not a dead pv resident, but the very much still alive Donald Trump.
It’s actually against the law to put a living politician on currency. It would require an act of Congress to make an exception for Trump and, sure enough, Republicans have introduced legislation to get his face onto a $250 bill — even though it stands almost no chance of passing.
Putting his face on a commemorative gold coin
OK, so maybe a $250 bill isn’t in the cards, but you know what the mint is great at? Commemorative coins! The U.S. treasury did approve a design for a 24-karat gold coin bearing Trump’s presidential portrait on the front, and a bald eagle on the reverse. The size and worth of the coin have not yet been announced..
Replacing 250th anniversary musical performances with a rally speech
The regional musical headliner or aging country star is a vital part of most great fairs, and Trump certainly tried to make his national celebration the same. Unfortunately, he failed, as star after star pulled out when it became clear that Trump was relentlessly politicizing their performances. Instead, Trump did what he always does: took the spotlight himself. Instead of seeing, say, Martina McBride or … Vanilla Ice, for some reason, audiences instead were treated to, and you need to read this full quote by Trump himself, “the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our Country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the Greatest President in History (THE GOAT!), DONALD J. TRUMP, to take the place of these highly paid, Third Rate ‘Artists,’ and give a major speech, rallying the Country forward like I have done ever since being President!”
Incredible stuff, Mr. President. Bars worthy of Vanilla Ice, indeed.
Putting his face on commemorative banners all over the capital
You may have noticed a pattern at this point: Trump likes seeing his own face. Perhaps he is psychologically trapped in the image like Narcissus, or pulling a reverse Dorian Grey in which the more portraits of himself he puts up looking 20 years younger, the older he looks in person. Trump has been hanging banners of himself on buildings across the capital, including on the Department of the Interior, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Labor. Many of the “America 250” banners are placed alongside images of other famed presidents like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. It’s just another way Trump is trying to associate himself with the idea of American greatness. If the anemic crowds in Washington, D.C., this week are any indication, the effort is falling flat.
Balloons and signs lay on the floor as people celebrate during the final day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on Aug. 22, 2024 in Chicago, Ill.
Trump Is in Freefall — But Can Dems Do the Work to Actually Win Back Voters?
Autopsies are inherently messy, but any forensic scientist would lose their license if they left as much blood splattered around the room as the DNC’s 2024 election report.
The process was chaotic from the start — a report commissioned, left unfinished, hidden by the top brass and then, when scooped by CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere, suddenly released into the world riddled with crimson annotations that alternately disavowed and apologized for the shoddy product. This combination of defensiveness and reflexive apology is a perfect encapsulation of the problems facing the Democratic Party.
This is a shambolic shame because there is a real need for a data-driven analysis of what went wrong in 2024. Democrats need to deal with the uncomfortable fact that the party lost an election to an unhinged felon and two years later their approval rating somehow remains lower than Donald Trump, even while the president’s approval is in freefall because of rising costs, unprecedented corruption, chaotic government, an unpopular foreign war, and daily assaults on the Constitution.
The Democratic brand damage is deep and needs to be addressed. But there is a strong impulse toward denial in part because an honest assessment might offend someone, somewhere — and because Democrats look likely to benefit from the pendulum swing of politics by making the gains in the midterms.
These expected wins will give our republic the necessary checks and balances to get through Donald Trump’s disfigurement of American democracy. But they won’t be enough to break the fever in our polarized politics.
Especially with the rollback of the Voting Rights Act in the South and demographic shifts from blue states to red, Democrats need to rebuild the big tent and win back swing voters in swing states that have abandoned them over decades. That’s not all. They need to field a new brand of rural and red state Democrats, as well. To do this, they’ll need to drop the self-righteous ideological purity tests that preoccupy online debates and get back in the business of persuasion beyond the base.
In one of the few useful sections of the half-baked 2024 election report, the anonymous author analyzes the ticket splitting that occurred in the crucial swing state of North Carolina, where now Governor Josh Stein outpaced Kamala Harris’ campaign by a solid 8.5 points.
Yes, this success was aided by the Republican nominee Mark Robinson describing himself a “Black Nazi” with a love of online porn that rivaled his love for Trump. But the autopsy argues that Stein’s strength was rooted in his decision to “focus less on abstract issues and identity politics, and connect with voters on the issues they say matter most, including the economy, disaster relief, and addressing housing affordability.”
This sentence is worth unpacking, as it’s the only place in the report that uses the phrase “identity politics” — which is one more time than the report mentions Gaza or Joe Biden’s age.
Blue Rose Research has published some of the most honest and challenging analysis of Democrats’ problems to date (and should be commissioned to redo this report). One of their most searing statistical condemnations — explained in an essential interview between Blue Rose’s David Shorr and the New York Times’ Ezra Klein — is the fact that Democrats lost ground with young voters and in communities of color. Hispanic moderates in particular swung 23 points away from Democrats between 2016 and 2024. Moderate Asian-American voters swung 11 percent against Democrats in that same time frame. Despite promising mass deportations, Trump actually won the votes of foreign-born immigrant citizens. A focus on identity politics is not achieving its intended goal. As a leading Democrat from the Obama White House once told me, “We appeal to voters as members of groups, but people don’t vote as groups — they vote as individuals.”
As the autopsy explains, “millions of Americans are suffering from poor access to health care, manufacturing and job losses, and a failing infrastructure, yet continue to be persuaded to vote against their best interests because they do not see themselves reflected in the America of the Democratic Party.”
Until Democrats face the hard truths of why folks don’t see themselves reflected in their vision of America, they are going to keep coming up short.
This disconnect is compounded by a core problem: Democrats score best on the issues that voters say they care about least — like LGBTQ policies, climate change, abortion, child care, and student debt — while Republicans maintain a reputation for being strong on cost of living, inflation, crime, taxes, national security, and border security.
All these issues are important, but there is a hierarchy of needs in people’s lives, and Republicans have a better brand perception when it comes to dealing with the fundamentals that apply broadly in day-to-day life for most Americans, with the exception of health care. For Democrats, the lesson is that if you don’t get the big things right, the small things don’t matter.
The next Democratic Congress and the next Democratic president are going to need a relentless focus on getting shit done — proving that government can work again for working people and deliver results that they can see and feel in their own lives.
Making sure that people see results is not just a communications problem, but it does require disrupting the consultant industrial complex. Buried on page 40, the autopsy points out the absurdity of the fundraising hamster wheel that delivers donor dollars to broadcast and cable ad buys: “In the current media ecosystem, Republicans own and Democrats rent,” it says. “Democrats pay for seasonal access to the networks, stations, platforms, and newspapers owned by Republicans or right-wing entities, to advertise and communicate with voters. … In a sense, Democrats are funding right-wing media to buy more properties and expand their ability to drive partisan perspectives.”
This is true. Democrats need to build their own long-term influence infrastructure instead of defaulting to broad-based cable TV ad buys and mailers. It would be far more effective to identify and target persuadable voters where they live — on their phones, on YouTube, and on social media platforms — in order to reach the right voters with the right message at the right time, as opposed to the essentially analog spray and pray model still in place today because consultants get 10 percent of the buy. It is an arena ripe for disruption.
To win back the middle of America, Democrats need to focus on rebuilding the middle class and the middle of our politics. They need to project strength, reclaim patriotism, and ditch identity politics in favor of focusing on affordability and the economy. Rather than defending a broken status quo, Democrats need to be the party of change and reform, modernizing government to help hard-working Americans get ahead, and delivering on the promise of putting the national interest over all special interests.