The Great American Ripoff

The one hundredth anniversary of American independence in 1876 had the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where Alexander Graham Bell debuted the telephone. The one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of American independence in 1926 had the Sesquicentennial Exposition, also in Philadelphia, where alcohol was not allowed. (Prohibition.) For the two hundredth anniversary of American independence in 1976 - the Bicentennial - there was nothing of the sort. A world's fair in Philadelphia or anywhere else in the United States was logistically and financially impossible because, well, he federal government pretty had much spent the money needed for a fair in Vietnam in the previous decade, community opposition in both Philadelphia and Boston to a fair made it beyond difficult to hold in either city, ,and the economic instability and oil shortages of the early 1970s turned public opinion against it.  (And yet, Expo '74 in Spokane, Washington, with environmental preservation as a theme, managed to get off the ground.  Go figure.)

As someone who has never been to a world's fair - there hasn't been one in the United States since 1984 - I was hoping, really hoping, that there would be a fair for the semiquincentennial of American independence this year.

I forgot that old adage - be careful what you wish for.

Trump's Great American State Fair is a "celebration" of the 250th anniversary of the United States, a gaudy carnival on the National Mall that is either a parody of a real world's fair or an exaggeration of the utter banality of state fairs.  Or a combination of both.  The fair opened with a Trump rally that replaced the big concert that every performer not named Robert by his mother, Van Winkle by his father, and Vanilla Ice by himself bowed out of, and the official kickoff featured patriotic music from a military band, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy delivered opening remarks saying that their music was better than anything the "libtards" who backed out could have provided, while his Down's Syndrome-affected daughter stood by his side.  Duffy has refused to apologize for using the word, though he probably forgot himself when he used it in the company of his daughter.  He probably uses the word "libtard" regularly when dealing with mass transit advocates and bullet-train supporters at the Transportation Department building.

As for the fair itself . . . well, as far as I can make out, it has hamburgers, ice cream and lemonade available, but the ice cream might a bit runny because of power issues involving the freezers.  There's a 110-foot Ferris wheel that looks cool, when it works - that broke down as a result of a power issue.

And on top of all that, Robert Van Winkle is scheduled to perform tonight.

Feeling patriotic yet?

It gets better - or worse.  The fair also includes a 250-foot (get it?) replica of the arch Trump plans to build at the end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge on the Virginia side, as seen above (a winged Statue of Liberty?  Well, if I were Lady Liberty, I'd want wings to fly back to France), as well as a rodeo.

With a clown.

The states have their own pavilions - which are about as big as phone booths, to be honest - displaying.  Displaying what?  Mostly displaying around.  Seriously, they have displays of what makes them so unique, an important theme considering how shopping malls, Wal-Marts, Home Depots, office parks, cookie-cutter housing developments, and  McDonald's eateries have sucked the the regional distinctions of this country and made every place in America look like no place in particular.  However, Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts,  Connecticut, North Carolina and Illinois have refused to take part (why, New Jersey, why did you not join them?), but Trump is celebrating the land of Lincoln by having a Lincoln hologram on display.  (What is this, Disney World Lite?)  Too bad Illinois isn't taking part, a presentation on the man who made modern America - McDonald's founder Ray Kroc - would have been enlightening.

Including the McDonald's mascot - a clown.

It's a national fair, with state pavilions, not a world's fair with national pavilions, and it's just as well, too, because no self-respecting foreign country would want to be represented at this Trump psycho circus.  Which works out fine, since the United States hasn't taken part in a world's fair elsewhere in a meaningful way for decades. 

At that, I should end my comments about a fair I have no intention of going to - in fact, I will deliberately be in London this time next week, on Independence Day (oh, the irony!) - and thus cannot opine on from personal experience.  I was out of the country last July 4, spending a weekend in Montreal, where there's a permanent and much nicer Ferris wheel (and ninety feet taller!), and I plan to be out of the country for every July 4 to come until the end of time, which could be sooner than one might think.  But I can say this.  It's my personal experience that any patriotic celebration where the admission is free, especially one involving Trump, is way overpriced.