The opening of the Obama Presidential Center last month had an all-star lineup of performers, a bipartisan guest list, and speeches encouraging the country to rise to its highest ideals. On social media, some Democrats called it the real America 250.
In an alternate universe where President Donald Trump lost the 2024 race, and the East Wing tear down, tariffs, and Iran war never happened, America’s 250th anniversary would certainly feel much different. There were plans for a parade in Washington, D.C., a festival put on by the Smithsonian on the National Mall, and coins that were never minted.
Instead, we got a UFC fight, Trump rally, and a fair that’s drawn negative attention for its soft attendance. Under a President Kamala Harris, it could have looked different, according to Democrats.
Imagine a Beyoncé concert for 1 million people on the National Mall
“You don’t have to squint real hard to see a Beyoncé concert for literally 1 million people on the Mall,” one Democratic professional who requested anonymity because of their work on the Great American State Fair tells Fast Company about what a Democratic America 250 might have been like. “It’s not hard to see how that could have been.”
Plans for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations began a decade ago when Congress created the United States Semiquincentennial Commission, which then-President Barack Obama signed into law in 2016. Since then, the non-partisan group has been rebranded once, and it’s lasted through to both Trump administrations and former President Joe Biden’s term. Plans have evolved and changed.
The Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival, held annually in Washington, D.C., wasn’t able to be hosted on the National Mall this year as it was for the 1976 Bicentennial since Trump’s Great American State Fair booked the space. Called “Of The People: The Smithsonian Festival of Festivals,” it’s now on the road for a national tour in cities from Detroit to Tucson.
There were plans for a D.C. parade with “diverse floats” and marching bands, as well as concerts across the country that capture “the nation’s cultural diversity,” according to a September 2024 playbook created by America250 and obtained by Time.
At the U.S. Mint, which approved designs for coins commemorating civil rights during the Biden administration, Trump’s administration scrapped those plans for coins focused heavily on America’s colonial and Revolutionary War eras.
A more inclusive, accessible approach
Trump’s handling of the nation’s anniversary polarized the festivities at a time when his approval rating has never been lower. When artists dropped out of performing for the state fair, some said it was because they had assumed it was a nonpartisan event, when in fact it was the product of Freedom 250, Trump’s own parallel organization that’s been planning semiquincentennial events.
An America 250 under a Democratic president who hadn’t created their own parallel commission—or even a different Republican president—may well have be more rigorously nonpartisan and attracted more big-name corporate sponsors and cultural institutions for partnerships.
Trump’s sponsors have included the prediction market Polymarket for the UFC fight, while trillionaire donor Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Northrop Grumman, a defense contractor, are among the relatively few non-state exhibitors at the fair. Instead of national name brands looking to reach a broad audience for these Trump-affiliated events, it’s businesses that have business in front of the Trump administration.
Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who’s accused the Trump administration of corruption, white washing history, and platforming Christian nationalism with the anniversary, said Trump is attempting to “hijack” it.
“The administration seems to be usurping this special occasion, shifting it to a gilded tribute to the president and rewriting of our nation’s history—but America is so much more than that,” Huffman said in a statement.
A branding exercise for sitting presidents
This isn’t the first time party plans for a big American birthday have changed from president to president. Ahead of the Bicentennial in 1976, Lyndon Johnson imagined a Worlds Fair to highlight Great Society and Model Cities policies and programming. When Richard Nixon succeeded him, his administration immediately tried to create a patriotic celebratory event that was targeted towards his constituency, says M.J. Rymsza-Pawlowska, an associate professor of history at American University. After Nixon resigned amid investigations into the Watergate break-in and cover-up, Gerald Ford ended up taking a less partisan approach to the celebration.
“What was different is that the American people really pushed back at this, leading Nixon to back off, so the final form of the Bicentennial, under Ford, was a decentralized grassroots affair,” Rymsza-Pawlowska says.
Presidential administrations typically view national commemorations as an opportunity to highlight their own policy and symbolically connect their administration to the direct legacy of the founding moment, she says.
Rather than bemoaning what could have been, many Americans are making the most of what they’ve got, more interested in how they’re celebrating America’s anniversary at home in their communities than what the president is doing in Washington.
Americans defining 250 for themselves
America250 says more than 1,200 grassroots celebrations are planned across the country, while “America Gives,” its nationwide service initiative, has racked up more than 13 million volunteer hours, a U.S. record.
And those concerts coast-to-coast that the Biden-era planning document called for? They’re still happening. Christina Aguilera is among the headliners at The One Philly: Unity Concert for America in Philadelphia, while the July 4th Benefit Show at the LA Memorial Coliseum will feature Chris Stapleton and The Smashing Pumpkins. The Giving 4th Broadcast Benefit Show at One Times Square on Independence Day Eve will also feature performers.
There might not be a Beyoncé concert on the National Mall. Still, the bipartisan America250 is carrying out its programming admirably, despite a funding shortfall and bad bad vibes (four in 10 Americans feel “proud” about the country’s anniversary, per an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll).
“We are grateful for all the support we’ve received from Congress, and from private organizations and individuals—and continue to work to raise the funds we need to complete our work on a celebration that is worthy of the anniversary it commemorates,” an America250 spokesperson says.
While Trump’s Freedom 250 has at times seemed to overshadow the bipartisan efforts to mark the occasion with spectacle, America’s 250th anniversary doesn’t have to be defined by programming catering to one man and his political base. At local block parties and service projects across the country, Americans are defining the anniversary in their own communities for themselves by connecting with others and looking outwards.