America’s favourite national holiday is usually marked with fireworks, hot dogs and the proud flying of the star-spangled banner, as patriotic citizens belt out the national anthem in its honour.
Donald Trump’s idea celebrate the 250th anniversary of Independence day today by turning the National Mall into a massive version of a homely state fair, complete with fairground rides and lemonade stands, must have sounded like a great idea when it was first suggested.
The reality has proved far less successful. Pictures from the event appear to show attendance far lower than the 45,000 the President boasted of yesterday, with swathes of green space between people.
Analysts say that the apparent flop is not just down to poor planning, but speaks to Trump’s deeper misunderstanding of the people he leads, and their feelings towards both him and the state of their country.
Wrong day for it
Part of the reason today’s events might have been poorly attended is that they are just the latest in a long string of events Trump and others have organised to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, according to Professor Emma Long, associate professor in American history and politics at the University of East Anglia.
This is not helped by the fact that the President set up his own body to co-ordinate celebrations, ‘Freedom 250’, when Congress was already in the process of planning events under the ‘America 250’ banner.
“The US has been celebrating the 250th anniversary on and off for quite some time at thispoint,” she said. “A lot of states have had local events to celebrate the national moment.”
People lie on the grass at the The Great American State Fair after it was reopened following an earlier closure due to extreme temperatures on July 03, 2026 in Washington, DC. The Freedom 250-backed Great American State Fair celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States closed from around 1PM until 5PM due to high temperatures. The fair runs through July 10th. (Photo by Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images) The South Lawn of the White House was turned into a cage-fighting arena for the “UFC Freedom 250” event .(Photo:Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images)That’s not to mention Trump’s own “more unusual” celebrations, including the UFC cage fight organised to coincide with his 80th birthday last month.
Long thinks Trump got it wrong trying to hold a celebration today, as most Americans prefer to treat 4 July itself with as a “get-together with family and friends” rather than travelling to a public event.
Far from the Maga crowds
People may also have been put off attending by the location in Washington DC, which is full of mostly “liberal” voters who wouldn’t be on board with a Trumpian celebration, Long said.
She said things might have been different if he had held the event “somewhere in the middle of Texas or in parts of Florida rural Ohio”.
A worker uses an umbrella to shade himself during a period of extreme heat in the Washington region at an entrance to The Great American State Fair, as part of celebrations marking the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States, in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 1, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein The Great American State Fair was temporarily closed due to heat on the National Mall yesterday. (Photo: REUTERS/Cheney Orr)“Washington DC is also an expensive city to stay in, even when you haven’t got all this going on,” she said. Those who have attended the fair have reported high prices, with lemonade at $9 and a turkey leg for $23, at a time when gas prices are at the highest on average since 2022. Some states even refused to have a stall due to the participation costs.
“For Americans feeling the cost of living crisis, the impact of inflation around gas prices with everything going on in Iran, it may be that actually even just the cost…may well have have just put it beyond the reach of a lot of people,” she said.
This is just the latest in a series of expensive Trump projects which have gone down poorly with struggling Americans, including his $14.7m (£11m) failed project to restore the White House reflecting pool.
It didn’t help that heatwave meant travelling to the capital was even less attractive than it might otherwise have been, with attendees reportedly fainting yesterday forcing the closure of the fair for the afternoon and leading to the cancellation of today’s military parade.
A piece of the new blue paint, a part of President Donald Trump’s renovation, peels off from the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial’s Reflecting Pool on June 18, 2026, in Washington, DC. The algae levels also spiked days after the renovation, which cost around $ 14 million, completed. (Photo by Christine Kao/The Washington Post via Getty Images)Trump’s popularity has ‘plummeted’
Others will have been kept away by political constraints rather than practical ones, Long argued. In other periods, people have put politics aside for the national holiday, Long said, so it speaks to the significance of President Trump’s “plummeting” approval ratings that people weren’t even to set their differences aside and show up to his celebrations today.
“I saw this with people who were upset with George W. Bush at the beginning of the century when people were upset about some of his policies in Afghanistan and Iraq,” she said. “A lot of people were willing to put aside the politics and think, well, this isn’t about our government…It’s separate.”
Attendees wait in line at the Florida booth during the Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, DC, United States, on July 2, 2026. (Photo by Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images) Air Force One performed a flyover over the National Mall as part of celebrations yesterday. (Photo: REUTERS/Ken Cedeno)The recent Supreme Court decision upholding the right to birthright citizenship was widely welcomed, with the majority of Americans opposing Trump’s proposal to end it, suggesting Trump misjudged the American people’s attitude when it comes to the Constitution.
“They have a reverence for these founding documents and their founding history that is akin to religion in many ways,” Long explained. “I think many people look at it and go, ‘well, it’s in the Constitution and we don’t mess around with that, so we don’t like it when Trump does that’.”
Using pagaentry for politics
In a speech last night at a rally-style event to kick off today’s celebrations, Trump leaned into a new kind of divisive political rhetoric, conflating his anti-immigration stance with a new anti-communist angle.
“As we approach this magnificent anniversary, we see our American identity under a renewed attack,” he said to a crowd of supporters.
“A generation after we fought and won the cold war against the menace of communism, there is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success.”
Long thinks the escalating divisive rhetoric of last night’s speech is a sign that Trump is responding to his drop in popularity, as reflected in the fair’s attendance, and of his fears that growing “Republican, ordinary voter criticism” might be reflected in the mid-terms.
“If he feels like they are dropping off, I can see this as a way, of, you know, trying to to appeal to that group and try and bring them back within the Maga fold,” she said.
“He’s never going to admit that he made mistakes, but it might be a way of sort of saying, ‘okay, we know things are maybe aren’t quite going as we wanted, but look how bad it could get if you go with the other side.'”
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