Donald Trump’s 4th: Communists, Fireworks and Voting Rights

WASHINGTON (07-06) – America’s 250th Independence Day celebration was unlike any other the nation has ever seen. The extravaganza here in Washington reigned over by a stubbornly independent and aging president who does as he pleases is not what July 4th is all about. America deserved better.

The weekend began with Trump opening the holiday by traveling to South Dakota where, prior to his departure, he shared on social media an edited video depicting his likeness superimposed on Mount Rushmore. At the celebration he gave a very disjointed and partisan speech after which he returned to Washington to MC the celebration on the fourth. The unstated and obvious reason to visit Mount Rushmore was in drumming up support to have his portrait carved on the quintessential American monument.

In his almost 30-minute dialogue, he rambled on about communism and immigrants threatening the American way of life, of his not having received a Nobel Peace prize, complaining about the Biden administration and other off topic subjects. He failed to mention how as a president he has contributed to how far America has drifted from the very principles that once defined us as a people, and a nation. That continued regression led by Trump under the MAGA banner has pushed the country towards an authoritarian and fascistic direction—driven by a leader who views the nation as his personal enterprise to exploit for financial gain.

Perhaps the most strikingly ironic moment of his speech came when he equated immigrants and protesters as communists in his now signature attempt to invoke a new McCarthy era, warning of “…those who peddle Marxist lies about our heritage—to our children—that we live on stolen land or that our heroes are oppressors.” The irony of which was that he stood on the sacred Lakota Black Hills land at Mount Rushmore that was “…illegally seized from the Sioux Nation in 1876 in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.”

As revealed by several news sources published before the celebration, the Oglala Lakota Tribal Council on June 9th during a special session voted to stop the celebration at Mount Rushmore by urging “…the U.S. National Park Service and U.S. National Forest Service to cancel the fireworks event because of the local drought, posing a risk of wildfires in the Black Hills, that could threaten both Lakota and local residents and their properties.” Their request was rejected.

Washington was, however, the scene of what was billed as the “world’s largest fireworks display” at its July 4th celebration. The cost for the record-breaking display that was scheduled to last 40-minutes in which 850,000 pyrotechnics were detonated has yet to be divulged, along with who paid for the extravaganza.

Health officials across the DMV had warned of the fireworks displays negative impact on public health regarding micro-particulates spread widely into the air with each explosion. Inhaling them would adversely impact the lungs of all those exposed. They noted that people in downtown Washington, Capitol Hill and Arlington, Virginia would be at most risk by the lingering smoke that lasted for several hours after the show ends.

Due to unstable weather and lightning strikes, the National Mall was evacuated of an estimated 100,000 attendees during a disorganized scramble to safety as people were moved to the nearby Smithsonian museums and elsewhere, where they sheltered in place for two hours until the storm passed over the city.

When the show resumed, Trump gave another long-winded partisan speech on the stage at the Potemkin Great American State Fair wherein again he announced his desire for a third term. And followed by echoing his Mount Rushmore warning of a looming “communist” threat who will beat “…the American spirit out of us, alienate us of our history, and make it impossible to even answer the question, what does it mean to be an American.”

He neglected to mention, however, that his administration has enforced the sanitization of museum labels in Washington to purge them of what they perceive as “extreme political activism.” Thus, alienating us from our history, something he vowed to protect Americans from. What it means to be an American is a question he should reflect upon and answer for himself.

To round off the evening, Trump called for the passage of the highly unpopular Republican-sponsored voter suppression legislation, the Save America Act. So, in celebrating our 250th Independence Day we are left with a call from the president for the passage of an Act of Congress to create barriers that would limit the participation of all American citizens to vote in federal elections, thus depriving some of the right to freely choose their elected leaders without obstructions.

This is not what it means to be an American!

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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