Musicians who backed out of the Great American State Fair say they were cheated.
“I HAVE NOTIFIED MY MANAGERS THAT I WILL NOT BE PERFORMING AT THE FREEDOM 250 EVENT,” rapper Jong MC wrote on Facebook for the first major US 250th anniversary celebration.
“The performers were never told there was any political involvement in the event. And despite the organizers’ claims that the event was nonpartisan, SPIN magazine described it as ‘Trump-endorsed.'”
Country singer Martina McBride said the organizers’ description of the event as non-partisan turned out to be a “deception.”
After many of the performers pulled out, rather than continue the appearance of neutrality, the disgraced president decided to replace them all with what he called “the biggest attraction in the world”: Donald Trump, writes Judith Levine, a Brooklyn-based journalist and contributor to the paper. Guardian.
That makes sense, because the sponsor of the fair is not America250, the nonpartisan body created by Congress a decade ago to oversee the 250th anniversary (semi-anniversary) of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but an organization called Freedom 250, which is virtually entirely under the control of the MAGA movement.
Even if the organizers were more honest, the artists could easily have been misled. Since his first term, Trump has become increasingly involved in events related to 2026, funding his own projects through opaque and complex structures that confuse donors, stakeholders, Congress, the media and everyone else as to who is actually paying for what.
The situation is not just another example of Trump’s impunity in using the US treasury as a personal coffers. It is also a symbol of the way in which the president combines the commemoration of the founding of the nation with his own glorification – “the country is me”.
This replaces content with spectacle, and history with myth. The heroes of that myth are a small group of white men under the leadership of the Christian God, while the villains are all those who dare to introduce unpleasant historical facts.
In 2016, Congress established a bipartisan Commission on America’s 250th Anniversary to plan and coordinate activities, materials and funding for the 2026 commemoration.
The commission’s first report, released in late 2019, outlined a “monumental initiative” that would include all 350 million Americans and “recognize and include the ‘many’ Americans in our ‘one’ nation.”
The heroes of that myth are a small group of white men under the leadership of the Christian God. The negatives are all those who dare to introduce an unpleasant historical truth.
The commission’s themes were bland and moderate — educate, include, unite — but the Trump administration was unusually sensitive to the “woke.”
African-American historians have marked 2019 as the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first slave ship on US shores.
In a special issue of the New York Times magazine, which later became a bestseller called “The 1619 Project”, journalist Nicole Hanna-Jones presented the thesis that 1619, not 1776, was the true beginning of the American nation, because slavery and anti-black racism were established then as the permanent foundations of its existence.
Then came the 2020 police killing of George Floyd and the wave of Black Lives Matter protests across the country.
On that Independence Day, Donald Trump denounced BLM as “rabid mobs” and spoke of a “left-wing cultural revolution … designed to overthrow the American Revolution and destroy US civilization itself.”
In response to the “relentless campaign to erase our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children,” he promised to “set the historical record straight.”
As a counterbalance to Project 1619, the administration created its own, competing Commission on 1776, which released its report two days before President Biden’s inauguration and 12 days after the failed attack on the Capitol.
The report repeated the same themes as the July 4th speech and recommended the teaching of “enlightened patriotism” and a history centered on “great white men,” with little attention paid to the lives of enslaved, indigenous peoples, or women.
The Commission’s 1776 report was so far removed from historical truth, and the educational approach it proposed so biased, that the American Historical Association called it an attempt at “state indoctrination of American students.”
Joe Biden abolished the Commission of 1776 and rescinded its report on his first day in office. But her twisted spirit returned again in 1776.
“Freedom 250” has little content, but a lot of money. Since the Department of the Interior, under which it is housed, has quietly directed staff to use “Freedom 250” as the primary brand for “America 250” events, the organization has overshadowed the bipartisan bipartisan commission for the bicentennial and diverted some of the public funding and private donations.
According to the Notus report, as of April, the America250 had received only $25 million of the planned $100 million, had a “funding shortfall” of $100 million, and had fewer private donations than expected.
At the same time, the Park Foundation and, indirectly, Freedom 250, received nearly $80 million in federal funding for the sesquicentennial — ten times the total since 2009.
In addition, the federal government spent more than $100 million on Trump’s “beautification” of Washington, including $5 million to gild four equestrian statues. Freedom 250 also offers donors perks that would be illegal for a government agency, such as a private reception hosted by Trump for a $1 million donation or a speaking slot at a July 4 event in Washington for $2.5 million.
Where does the money go? Into a mixture of Trump’s egocentrism, MAGA populism and Christian nationalism.
The first major production was a North Korean-style military parade to mark the military’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 79th birthday on June 14, 2025. To fund the $3 million extravaganza, America250 relied on companies including Oracle, Coinbase and Palantir, many of which were already big donors with an interest in staying on good terms with the president.
Part of the cost was also covered by the army, which means that it was paid for with taxpayers’ money.
The next event was a July 3rd rally at the Iowa Fairgrounds, where Donald Trump was the keynote speaker. “I can’t stand them,” the president said of the Democrats, “because I truly believe they hate our country.”
Agencies severely weakened by the Department of Government Efficiency have seen their remaining funds diverted to Trump projects.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) canceled $100 million in grants using a chatbot to search terms related to diversity, equity and inclusion, such as “LGBTQ” (a federal judge later ruled that the cancellations were unconstitutional). The NEH money was then diverted to Trump’s planned 250-statue “National Garden of American Heroes” in Washington, D.C., intended “to reflect the majestic splendor of our country’s timeless exceptionalism.”
Another lawsuit saved the Institute of Museums and Libraries (IMLS) from sudden closure. However, the agency has already adjusted its priorities to the administration’s policy.
Grant applicants were informed that projects related to the sesquicentennial should “teach citizens what makes our country the greatest in the world.”
A $14 million grant was awarded to the “Freedom Trucks” project, six “moving museums” that represent the glorious American story where slavery is just an unpleasant mistake and treaties with indigenous peoples are not violated.
America’s largest cultural heritage institution, the Smithsonian Institution, is also under scrutiny. The administration ordered museums and libraries to provide details of all exhibits related to the half-year anniversary, in order to make “content corrections … replacing divisive or ideologically colored language with unifying, historically accurate and constructive descriptions.”
Freedom 250 is not a national project. It is a commercial project based on white Christian nationalism. The list of partners is full of Christian and conservative organizations, including National Religious Broadcasters, Pray, WallBuilders and the school library ban group Moms for Liberty.
Among the dozens of sponsors and partners of Freedom 250, there is not a single organization whose name suggests a racial, ethnic or gender identity.
In May, Freedom 250 sponsored the event “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving,” which combined sermons from 19 faith leaders, 18 of whom were Christians, mostly evangelicals with Republican political leaders.
House Speaker Mike Johnson prayed that we would “remember that God’s mighty hand has been upon our nation from the very beginning.” Donald Trump was out golfing, but he sent a video of himself reading from 2 Chronicles 7:14, the same video he appears to have already used for another prayer event.
The Freedom 250 and White House websites highlight a series of “American Stories” videos produced by the conservative Christian Hillsdale College and introduced by its president, Larry Arn, who headed the Commission of 1776. The “Freedom Trucks” educational materials were created by PragerU, a pro-capitalist Christian educational media organization.
America is not one story; its meanings are in constant dispute. The changing nature of history is exactly what the MAGA version of the half-year anniversary is most trying to suppress. Perhaps the painting that best captures that message is “Prayer at Valley Forge,” a painting of George Washington kneeling in the snow by his horse, painted for the 1976 biennial by conservative Christian artist Arnold Friberg of Utah.
That image is on the back pages of Freedom Trucks, circulated on federal agency social media, and sold on the America 250 website as a print and historical comic. It is an attractive, folk-style image of an inspiring event.
But there are two “flaws”: George Washington was a strong advocate of the separation of church and state. And there is no evidence that this event ever actually happened.
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