Transcription
big 250th anniversary, understandably there's a lot of looking back at how we as a country had handled previous big number anniversaries of our country's founding. So, for example, there was a lot of looking back this year at 1976 and all the groovy, groovy, psychedelic ways we celebrated THE BICENTENNIAL, THE 200-YEAR ANNIVERSARY IN 1976.
AND ACTUALLY IF YOU LOOK BACK AT THE PRESS FROM 1976, YOU YOU WILL FIND THAT BACK THEN, 50 YEARS AGO, PEOPLE, AMERICANS, THE PRESS, COMMENTATORS, PEOPLE WERE ALSO LOOKING BACK AT PREVIOUS BIG NUMBER CELEBRATIONS. People in 1976 were we're looking back at 1876, the 100-year celebration, the Centennial in 1876 when we celebrated a hundred years as a country by having a big World's Fair in Philadelphia.
We also look back at the 150th year celebration, which was in 1926, where this lady in Louisiana apparently got a souvenir SOUVENIER COCONUT, which she hold on to for 50 years. So she got the SOUVENIER COCONUT at the Sesquicentennial in 1926. And she was able to proudly display it to her local paper at the Bicentennial in 1976. The coconut lasted. So, I mean, in ways big and small, you do what you can. We don't always do a great job at these celebrations.
Jill Lepore, the historian who writes at The New Yorker, wrote recently about the 1926, the Sesquicentennial, the 150-year celebration where apparently they initially tried to give the Ku Klux Klan a permit for a Klon vocation. Literally, they tried to permit a huge KKK parade at the Sesquicentennial, at the 150th anniversary of the country's founding before somebody finally thought better of the idea. We do not always do a great job with these kinds of big number, big anniversary celebrations of the founding of the United States of America.
But honestly, our generation is the one who had to figure out how to celebrate the 250th. We just had the 250th. What is anybody even going to be able to say we did for this one? I mean, honestly, if like in all previous big number anniversaries, we look back at the last one to say like, oh, well, this is how they dealt with it last time. When generations hence look back on this one, the 250th, what will they be able to say we did as a country?
I mean, Trump gave a speech for the 250th anniversary. He literally called it a Trump rally. And at the event, there was lightning and his followers reportedly argued with the Secret Service and police and refused their orders to leave because they didn't want to leave because they thought it was, quote, liberals in the Weather Service who were conspiring against them. It wasn't actually the weather. It was liberal weather. And Trump tried to put together something he called a state fair, but it IT WAS SAD AND PETTY AND UNDERWHELMING, AND NOBODY REALLY CAME, AND THE BOOGIE-WOOGIE BUGLE BOY DANCERS ON TRUMP'S WEIRD NATIONAL MALL STAGE WERE NEARLY KILLED BY A BIG. They were rehearsing. I mean, yes, there was a big military fly over and a lot of fireworks, but that was kind of it. That proved to be the only thing the federal government of the United States was capable of pulling off for its 250th birthday.
And, like I said, these anniversaries haven't always been great. And maybe they weren't going to be great no matter who was in the White House. But for the kind of leader we have in the White House right now, for this kind of a guy, this kind of an anniversary was never going to be his thing, right? It was always going to be too much about the country and not enough about him. He is the only person to whom things actually seem real, right, or seem important. If it's not about him, he doesn't really care. So really the only things he even tried to do for this huge anniversary were things that were about him.
I mean, so here's a federal government that spent the 250th anniversary of its founding, you know, holding a Trump rally and rolling out a passport with Trump's face on it and rolling out a Trump gold coin and rolling out Trump signed $100 bills and they want to do a Trump picture $250 bill. And they did this Trump state fair with a hoopty fall down staple gunned wooden model of the arch that he wants to build for himself. Who do you want this arch to honor? What do you want this arch to honor, Mr. President? I want it to honor me. Oh, and we also had a Trump visit to Mount Rushmore. And why did he go to Mount Rushmore? Because he wants to put his own face on Mount Rushmore. I mean, none of these things are even about the country, let alone for it.
I mean, 49 years and 363 days from now, if and when we hit our 300th anniversary as a country, I'm telling you, whatever media we have then will be looking back at us. We'll be looking at what we did this weekend. They'll be looking back at this 250th anniversary. What are we going to say we did? What are we going to say we look like this feckless, failed, truly laughable effort by a cult of personality, would-be dictator, failed extremist president who is more unpopular than just about any other president in the history of the presidency, but who's nevertheless trying to turn the country into Trumpistan. And that is how he spent the 250th commemoration of our founding as a