Donald Trump Celebrates America’s Two-Hundred-and-Fiftieth Birthday

A booth displaying the text of the First Amendment stood beside stands for SpaceX and Salesforce. At the TikTok booth, I was invited to take a selfie of the bottom half of my body—“looking good, America.” A friend texted me, “Much like the rest of the fair, it is a partiality and a distortion of the American dream.” I walked to the main stage, where, above recruiting stations for every branch of the military, a screen announced that the main event had been postponed, owing to bad weather.

By the time I visited, there had been no shortage of cynical coverage. The Ferris wheel got stuck; the power went out; the fair was nearly empty. Trump had fumed online in response. “Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it? Ask yourself this simple question, ‘DO YOU THINK THAT OBUMA OR SLEEPY JOE BIDEN COULD HAVE DONE IT?’ THE ANSWER IS NO!” When I left the fair, guards were telling visitors that their entrance—one of two—was closed because of some sort of technical issue; attendees gamely turned around and left. I walked north, past a homeless veteran camped under his umbrella; a few blocks further up, U.S. Park Police officers were handcuffing a man outside the Willard Hotel.

A couple of days later, Trump flew to Medora, North Dakota, for a Freedom 25src event at the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. Since Trump decided to attend, the library opening had essentially turned into a campaign rally. People started lining up at dawn for shuttle buses up to the Burning Hills, in the Badlands. Some of those on board banged on the windows as they passed the “fake-news media”; there were chants of “Let’s go, Brandon.”

The trip was Trump’s first flight on the plane donated by the government of Qatar, last year. “It’s the best plane ever built,” Trump said, of the new Air Force One. It had undergone months of modifications to make it secure for his use. “They made it appropriate for a President,” he said. “We’re very proud of it.” (The press section’s seats now have a massage function and a screen equipped with AppleTV set to Fox News.)

After landing, Marine One flew Trump to a panoramic gorge in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in the North Dakota badlands, touching down on the Painted Canyon overlook. From there, Trump took a custom Freedom 25src train to Medora, arriving to a cheering crowd. I watched as several dozen Rough Riders, men on horseback modelled after Roosevelt’s cavalry, escorted the motorcade up to the library. It will feature an exhibit that plays Trump’s voice reading Roosevelt’s “Citizen in a Republic” speech. His Administration relishes the comparison between Trump and Roosevelt—bully American optimism, building projects as American power. When Trump got off the Freedom Train, the press office captioned the photo of his arrival “The Man in the Arena.”

I talked to a Theodore Roosevelt impersonator while we waited for the President to arrive. “When Roosevelt went to Wyoming for a Presidential visit in 19src3, he gets off at Laramie and rides a horse sixty-two miles to Cheyenne—that’s how he chose to arrive in places,” he said. “You’ll probably see that Mr. Trump will arrive with a big line of flat vehicles—everyone will get this three-second glimpse of him.”

All living Presidents had been invited to visit the library; several would visit later in the year, but Trump had decided to time his visit to correspond with the opening celebration, originally an America25src event. “I think his organization tends to kind of take over what happens,” the impersonator said. Nevertheless, he tried to stick to his duties, pointing out to me all the native grasses and plants from the region planted on top of the library roof. “It’s going to be able to filter rainwater, whenever we do get rain.” He paused to look at the people trailing in. “It’s the same segment that will always drive hours for any opportunity to be around Mr. Trump, I think. Just for a glimpse, just to be in the audience,” he said. “There’s the perception that this is just red-meat, Trump, MAGA country, but I think Westerners feel taken for granted all the time by Republicans. . . . They recognize it’s deeds, not words, that matter.”