This Thursday, on the eve of July 4, President Trump will touch down at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The fair itself, with its butter cows and pie-eating contests, doesn’t start until August. But the president will be promoting an even bigger all-American spectacle: the nation’s 250th birthday party.
Thursday’s event is being billed as the start of the countdown to next summer’s Semiquincentennial, as the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is known. “A monumental celebration, kicking off a new era of American greatness,” according to the organizers, it will feature “patriotism, excitement, inspiration, and a glimpse into the grand festivities” to come — including the Great American State Fair and national Patriot Games for high school athletes, which Mr. Trump first teased on the campaign trail.
For many 250th planners across the country, it will throw a welcome spotlight, after years of struggling to get the public’s attention. But Mr. Trump’s embrace of the anniversary has also intensified a growing question: Will today’s hyper-polarized politics derail the Semiquincentennial?
Concerns have mounted in recent months as the Trump administration slashed funding or ousted leadership at federal cultural institutions like the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities. At the same time, it has moved to put Mr. Trump’s stamp on the little-known bipartisan group charged with coordinating the national commemoration, installing Fox News and Trump campaign veterans in key positions, while dropping some contractors with ties to Democrats.
Those worries spiked during last month’s military parade commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Army, held on Mr. Trump’s birthday, which spurred anti-Trump “No Kings” protests across the country that were rich in their own 1776-inflected symbolism.
Still, some are hoping the Semiquincentennial will bring the country together, without papering over deep political differences that go all the way back to the founding.
“We’ve always been divided, and studying the American Revolution really proves that,” said the filmmaker Ken Burns, whose 12-hour documentary about the revolution airs on PBS in November. “It was not just great men thinking great thoughts in Philadelphia.”
But the soaring principles of the Declaration, Burns said, should be at the center of the 250th commemoration.
“The ideas are so big and are not diminished by freely acknowledging not just the violence of the revolution, but the divisions in the country throughout our history,” he said. “Acknowledging that puts those ideas in even stronger and more inspiring relief.”
The Spirit of 1976?
Today, the American Revolution is often preserved in nostalgic amber. The same can be said of the Bicentennial of 1976.
In popular memory, the Bicentennial was about tall ships, painted fire hydrants, commemorative coins and star-spangled patriotism. But it was also deeply inflected by the political divisions of a nation still emerging from the Vietnam War and Watergate, and uncertain about just what and how to celebrate.
In the years leading up to 1976, newspapers were full of laments about projects run aground, excessive “Buy-centennial” commercialism and charges of politicization coming from both ends of the political spectrum.
In 1973, a bipartisan commission tasked with overseeing the anniversary was disbanded, amid charges that the Nixon administration was using it to further the president’s re-election. And there were left-wing rival efforts like the People’s Bicentennial Commission, an anti-corporate effort that staged guerrilla events, disrupting the official commemoration of the Boston Tea Party and, at one point, hanging an effigy of Ronald McDonald from a Liberty Tree.
Still, it all came together, powering a boom in public interest in history that lasted well beyond July 4, 1976. In 1982, a survey found that about 40 percent of the country’s existing historical organizations had been founded during the run-up to the Bicentennial. And in the academy, the anniversary helped spur a fresh rethinking of the nation’s origins, including the entanglements of liberty and slavery.
Much of that work was undergirded by large, federally supported efforts to compile and publish primary source documents from the founding period. Today, historians see many worthwhile individual projects, but no similarly deep investments in seeding future scholarship.
“The Bicentennial was both an experience and a legacy,” said Karin Wulf, a professor of history and director of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. “I worry that 2026, despite a lot of anticipation, might not be either.”
That fear has only been intensified by recent cuts to federal agencies that support history. In April, the administration canceled virtually all active grants by the National Endowment for the Humanities, saying they were not in line with “the president’s agenda.” And it has since redirected some of its funding toward Mr. Trump’s planned patriotic sculpture garden, the National Garden of American Heroes.
That shift has landed particularly hard at institutions dedicated to Black history, which were already in the cross-hairs of Mr. Trump’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
“We are being told that our stories no longer serve the interests of the United States,” said Noelle Trent, the executive director of the Museum of African American History in Boston. “It’s a very scary moment. Everyone is fighting like hell to survive.”
Her museum, a private nonprofit institution, recently opened a yearlong exhibition, “Black Voices of the Revolution,” which looks at the way African Americans articulated, and fought for, their own ideas of freedom.
“For the 250th, there will be the grand old flags, white wigs, boots and drums, and that’s fine,” Trent said. “But other people are going to lean in and tell a different story.”
For its Semiquincentennial history, the Trump administration has tapped conservative institutions like Hillsdale College, which is producing a history video series for the White House’s website, and the media platform PragerU, which collaborated with the Department of Education on “The Founders Museum,” a new digital exhibit unveiled last week. at an event featuring Usha Vance, the second lady.
At the same time, federal institutions are under intense pressure to conform to Mr. Trump’s call for a return to “patriotic history.” In an executive order issue in April, he accused the Smithsonian Institution of promoting “a divisive, race-centered ideology” and “narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive.” And last month, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, resigned two weeks after Mr. Trump, in a social media post, said he was firing her.
On its current 250th information page, the Smithsonian is highlighting all-American offerings like the restoration of the Revolutionary-era gunship the U.S.S. Philadelphia, its annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and next summer’s full reopening of the renovated National Air and Space Museum.
There is no mention of some previously teased exhibitions, like “Many Americas, Many 1776s,” which was to extend across the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian and the Latino Center. In a 2021 interview with The New York Times, Kevin Gover, the Smithsonian’s under secretary for museums and culture, described it as looking at places beyond the 13 colonies, and people often left out of traditional narratives.
Asked about the status of that exhibit, the Smithsonian, which will release its full roster of 250th offerings in the fall, said the “many Americas” concept had evolved into a new campaign, called “Our Shared Future: 250.”
“‘Our Shared Future: 250’ aims to create a space for celebration, contemplation and commemoration during this important anniversary, while also renewing our commitment to exploring the threads that tie us together as a nation,” Lisa Sasaki, the deputy under secretary for special projects, said in a statement.
Freedom Fries and Liberty Corn Dogs
The Senate spending bill passed this week includes $200 million for 250th-related efforts. The federal effort will also be supported through private funds raised by America250, the nonpartisan group charged with organizing the national commemoration.
Since its creation in 2016 by Congress, the group has struggled with leadership changes and lawsuits while struggling to get programs, like a storytelling project and a volunteerism campaign, off the ground. Since Mr. Trump’s return to office, it has moved in a different direction.
In May, it raised eyebrows by partnering on Code + Country, a cryptocurrency industry gathering in Las Vegas that featured his two older sons and other members of his circle. There have also been ethical questions about its sponsorship of the military parade, which was supported in part by companies with close political and financial ties to Mr. Trump.
The White House responded to a request for comment about the kickoff event in Iowa by forwarding a post by Mr. Trump on Truth Social, that said it would be “a very special event, honoring our Great Country, and our Brave Heroes who fought to keep us FREE.” Mr. Trump also promised to “tell you some of the GREAT things I’ve already done on Trade, especially as it relates to Farmers.”
Rosie Rios, a former U.S. Treasurer in the Obama administration who has served as chair of America250 since 2022, said in an email that she was “delighted” by the White House support for the group, and was “energized by ideas from the East and West Wing.”
“For this to be the largest and most inspiring celebration and commemoration in our nation’s history, we need the active participation of leaders at ALL levels,” she said.
Rios declined to provide any details about the Great American State Fair, or what a recently filed document from the Department of Interior said would be multiple America250 events next summer on and around the National Mall in Washington. But a recently circulated brochure, stamped with the America250 logo and introduced by Brooke L. Rollins, the secretary of agriculture, suggests the flavor.
The brochure urges governors to turn their state fairs this summer into “patriotic epicenters for America250.” Suggestions include patriotic drone light shows, concessions selling “freedom fries” and “liberty corn dogs,” and a Founding Fathers exhibit based on PragerU’s material.
The “most patriotic” fair will be honored by Mr. Trump at America250’s July 4 festivities next summer in Washington. Also on tap, according to a recent America250 email to state planners: the unfurling on the Mall or the Ellipse of “the largest U.S. flag in history,” carried by 500 flag bearers including astronauts, Olympians and Medal of Honor recipients.
Among some planners, America250’s pivot to flag-focused programs aligned with Mr. Trump’s political priorities has stirred unease.
“Don’t cede the narrative of the 250th to those who would subvert its educational and unifying potential,” John Dichtl, the president and chief executive of the American Association for State and Local History, said in a recent email to its more than 5,500 affiliate organizations.
But others see the partisanship running both ways. “The energy from the White House is welcome,” Ben Jones, the state historian of South Dakota and chairman of that state’s 250th commission, said. “If the 250th is politicized, it’s because people who dislike the president will politicize it, while those who admire him politicize it for their reasons.”
David Bobb, the president of the Bill of Rights Institute, a nonpartisan civic education organization in Washington, said that growing political polarization had left many people with a deep uncertainty over what exactly the Semiquincentennial is celebrating.
But Americans, he said, are far more united around the principles of the Declaration of Independence than they think.
“Let’s try to make the 250th a time for rediscovering those ideas and what they mean for the next 250 years,” he said.
Jennifer Schuessler is a reporter for the Culture section of The Times who covers intellectual life and the world of ideas.
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