Greetings and welcome to this 91st performance of the Carnival of Fools, where week after week we’ve been bringing you the best and the brightest (translator’s note — “worst and dimmest”) of America’s new celebrity political class since time immemorial (translator’s note — “since 2024”)! Yes, we’re gathered together here today to celebrate 250 years of the Carnival of Fools, and we’re delighted to feature a star-studded lineup of world-historic morons, including . . .
<adjusts earpiece>
What’s that? . . . Whaddya mean Platner’s dropping out of the lineup? <crosstalk> You’re telling me Graham Platner of all people is suddenly shy about pressing the flesh? Where’s Becerra, get me Becerra in here. Alright, to hell with it, we’ll just go with Trump again.
<turning back to crowd>
Ladies and gentlemen, it seems our schedule this week has been abruptly abbreviated. So let us talk about something equally as predictable as it was shameful, the complete implosion of the White House–backed Semiquincentennial celebrations amid the chaos of Trump’s second term and our overall civic decline.
The America’s 250th Debacle
I remember when a friend of mine, back in the fall of 2024, ran down the list of reasons he was going to vote for Donald Trump. Aside from all of the political ones — which need no rehearsal here — he ended with a throw-in point that actually moved me somewhat: “I don’t want America’s 250th anniversary to be run by Kamala Harris and the Democrats.”
And that was an argument I immediately understood. Imagine the public disgraces that Kamala’s Semiquincentennial would have officially sanctioned in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion. It would have been a yearlong lecture with July 4 a day of solemn reflection and recrimination. After Trump won in November, I heard similar sentiments from some of my friends, even those unpersuaded by Trump themselves: At least he wouldn’t be collaborating with the New York Times and the 1619 Project to turn America’s 250th into some ghastly yearlong anti-American display.
And they were right about that. Instead, there won’t be much of a celebration at all.
You’ve probably heard some of the sad story already: When Donald Trump took office, he pushed aside the (admittedly moribund) bipartisan “America250” commission formed in 2016 for his own Trump-branded “Freedom 250” commission — chaired by JD Vance and programmed from top to bottom by the administration. The big focus? A concert series throughout the summer on the Mall in D.C., climaxing in a three-day July 4 weekend spectacular.
The problem, of course, is that Trump has been persona non grata among the artistic world for years now and is glowingly radioactive after slapping his own name onto the Kennedy Center in a mad fit of vanity.
It’s important to realize the extent to which that one symbolic act, done in intemperate folly, permanently severed any possible link between American artists and the Trump administration. And don’t blame the artists, who know a naked attempt at PR maneuvering when they see one: By naming Washington’s primary civic performance venue after himself, Trump essentially commanded all who played there to pay tribute to him — an otherwise wildly unpopular president who would never command such respect in any other circumstance. To play at the “Trump/Kennedy Center” was to collaborate in one man’s desire to always make everything about himself at all times.
So when the roster for Freedom 250’s July 4th spectacular — a “Great American State Fair” celebration to be held at the Mall in Washington starting on June 24 — was finally announced last Wednesday, the “first wave of performers” was a remarkable collection of has-beens and one-hit wonders. America’s 250th anniversary had now been turned into an “I Love the ’90s” theme, and likely out of sheer necessity: Aside from Martina McBride, forgotten one-hit wonder acts like Vanilla Ice, Young MC, Bret Michaels, and Milli Vanilli (well, the living half of it) were the only ones willing to return the Trump administration’s calls.
It was a sad lineup, roundly mocked by all — and then even that began to fall apart. That very day, some artists spoke up to say they had never even been contacted by the Trump administration, much less consented to perform. The next day, Martina McBride pulled out, saying she had been promised the event would be nonpartisan, but “things started changing.” Bret Michaels of the hair-metal band Poison — a former competitor on Celebrity Apprentice, no less — ducked out, claiming a “deteriorating atmosphere.” (On the bright side: the rapper from C+C Music Factory is apparently still in.)
By Saturday, May 30, it was pretty much all over. Trump made the announcement with his usual grace and class:
I understand Artists are getting “the yips” having to do with their performance on Wednesday, so I am thinking about bringing 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! Two years ago, the United States was DEAD. Now we have the “HOTTEST” Country anywhere in the World. I don’t want so-called “Artists” that get paid far too much money, who aren’t happy. I only want to be surrounded by Happy People, Smart People, Successful People, and People that know how to WIN. So, by copy of this TRUTH, I am ordering my Representatives to look at the feasibility of doing an AMERICA IS BACK Rally on Wednesday, Washington, D.C., same time, same location. Only Great Patriots invited — It will be a Wild and Beautiful Celebration of America! President DONALD J. TRUMP
After insulting all the performers once more in a subsequent post, he then went on an extended rant about — tellingly — the Kennedy Center. That’s what Freedom 250 is now going to be: a giant Trump rally, part of his desperate plan to avoid a midterm shellacking so bad that Republicans lose the Senate. No wonder nobody wants to participate, outside of committed partisans. There will be no neutral space, and even more offensively, we will be asked to swallow Trump’s pawning off of a celebration of himself as a celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
I understand that the Semiquincentennial was never going to be like the Bicentennial, when America was soaked in civic enthusiasm all year long. (Like many people my age — I was born in 1980 — I have a bit of “Bicentennial Envy” because I never got to experience it.) Those who were there will tell you that it wasn’t all “rock, flag, and eagle” back then — the landfills were quickly glutted with cheap red, white & blue–colored junk — but also that it did feel like an authentically hopeful respite from what was otherwise a rather bleak year. (Imagine how bad things have to get before you’re willing to elect Jimmy Carter.)
But it seems that era of national unity is gone forever, in a nation where half of voters can barely even agree about our national virtues anymore, and the other half actively scorn those virtues. Independence Day will still fall on July 4; the day will feel as patriotic as it ever has, and hopefully more so given the significance of the anniversary. But it will feel far more threadbare than it has any right to be.
California Dreamin’
The California primary is today, and I buried it here for a reason — because I harbor an irrational superstition about not leading a piece with my hopes. (It’s like leading with your chin in boxing.)
It’s not that I have any hope for the outcome in the gubernatorial race; in all likelihood Californians will vote in the top-two primary tonight to send former state attorney general and Biden Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra forward alongside Republican television personality Steve Hilton, a typically depressing November matchup between the incompetent and the impossible. (Hilton has Trump’s endorsement and has gathered enough of the lingering GOP vote in the state to likely secure a top-two placement; whichever Democrat makes it through will barely have to phone in their campaign to defeat him.)
No, I hold onto one slim reed of hope today: that Spencer Pratt can finish in the top two of the Los Angeles mayoral primary. I already wrote in an earlier Carnival about how surprisingly impressive I found Pratt to be as a debater and a retail candidate, and how he was the only one of the three candidates for mayor who was telling the truth about how badly L.A. has declined in safety and civic responsibility. And since then the hustle and creativity of his wildly underfunded guerilla campaign has cheered me.
But internet phenomena rarely translate into real-world votes. So it will be interesting to see what kind of vote share Pratt’s buzzy and sharply focused campaign can garner. I don’t expect him to win in November, but if he can at least send Nithya Raman back to whatever progressive backrooms she slithered from, I will settle for that. Because this is California, I assume it’ll take until July before we’ve fully counted the vote.
Joke of the Week
This comes via colleague (and secret wit) Dan McLaughlin, who cracked over the weekend: “The only thing missing from the Platner campaign now is a sexting relationship with Olivia Nuzzi.”
Until next week.