https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/03/trumps-hijacking-july-th-just-got-lot-uglier/?fbclid=IwAR22f_Jj_Gw5Dw9CTENVHAxLgLYWmUmRqE7tlxvDxBbcgltX0MB74SeFZ2k&utm_term=.ddfc1e0688c1
"The authoritarian nationalist leader typically rewrites the story of the nation in his own image, in a very particular way. Our own homegrown authoritarian nationalist has proved particularly devoted to this fusion of national mythmaking and self-hagiography, often delivered in his own unique language of crass, gaudy spectacle. The historians tell us that this is what authoritarian nationalists do. As Harvard’s Jill Lepore puts it, they replace history with tried-and-true fictions — false tales of national decline at the hands of invented threats, melded to fictitious stories of renewed national greatness, engineered by the leader himself, who is both author of the fiction and its mythic hero. This is what we will be seeing in one form or another on the Fourth of July, no matter what Trump says in his planned Independence Day speech from the Lincoln Memorial. The very act of taking over the proceedings in the manner he has cooked up itself accomplishes this feat. New details are emerging about Trump’s plans. The Post reports that the National Park Service will now divert millions of dollars previously earmarked to improve parks across the country to fund Trump’s celebration on the Mall. Meanwhile, a White House official tells The Post that the plans include a plane from Air Force One’s fleet soaring overhead at precisely the moment that Trump takes the stage. Tanks will take part in the display. Finally, the White House is handing out tickets to the event to GOP donors and political appointees. Passes are being distributed by the Republican National Committee and Trump’s reelection campaign. As many critics have pointed out, by politicizing the Fourth of July so nakedly, Trump has inevitably transformed the celebration into a campaign event. It remains to be seen whether he will do so explicitly in his speech, but either way, that conversion has already been implicitly accomplished. It’s the melding of that fact with the particular display Trump is putting on that makes this so ugly."
