# Freedom 250 - The Great American State Fair **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 29, 2026, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470 "2026-05-29T03:08:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 25
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/481 "2026-06-29T11:37:07Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > If I were still at the DC job I had 2018-24 I could see myself doing a quick walkaround over an extended lunch break or at the end of the day, just to get the real sense of it. But would not do a dedicated daytrip from across the river for it. I am right across the street from the mall. I’m only in the office today, I still can’t decide if I want to do a quick walk around the place or not. At least today it shouldn’t be too hot out. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/482 "2026-06-29T12:24:03Z")
Trump Truth > [@](#): > > Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it? Ask yourself this simple question, “DO YOU THINK THAT OBUMA OR SLEEPY JOE BIDEN COULD HAVE DONE IT?” THE ANSWER IS NO! Could they have done whatever the hell the state fair is? Absolutely. Would they have? HELLLL NO! ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/483 "2026-06-29T12:48:46Z")
Don’t do it. (IMHO) Let the place be as empty as it can be. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/484 "2026-06-29T12:54:28Z")
The extra shitty thing about this dumpsterfire is that it displaced the annual [Smithsonian Folk Life Festival](https://festival.si.edu/). Which was a quite popular institution going back almost 60 years. I haven’t been recently, but the few times I did attend I would say the worst thing about it (other than the heat) were the crowds. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/485 "2026-06-29T13:14:34Z")
And according to people on X claiming to be close to the Smithsonian they HAD been planning on an America250 edition of Folk Life as part of the celebration, but then when Freedom250 took over they just got shoved aside. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/486 "2026-06-29T13:34:41Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > And according to people on X claiming to be close to the Smithsonian they HAD been planning on an America250 edition of Folk Life as part of the celebration, but then when Freedom250 took over they just got shoved aside I’m pretty sure I saw that cross-posted on Facebook. I’ve seen others opine that a big state fair that actually brought Americans together for the 250th would have been a great idea, but as usual, Trump has fucked it all up. It’s not such much that he even made it a partisan affair that clearly only welcomes MAGAs, it’s that he made it all about _himself_. Even a lot of the MAGAs seem to be disappointed with it. If Trump were even just a touch less of a narcissist, he’d have had a party that people would have actually loved, even amongst all the other crap going on these days, but he just couldn’t take a step back and let someone else do the job. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/487 "2026-06-29T13:43:11Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > If Trump were even just a touch less of a narcissist, he’d have had a party that people would have actually loved, even amongst all the other crap going on these days, If he were less of a narcissist, when the pandemic hit he would have admitted that something was not in his control. Instead, he allowed who knows how many people to die. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/488 "2026-06-29T13:45:54Z")
If it doesn’t guarantee him praise and applause NOW **and** afterward, it might as well fail. The issues with the electricity are a telltale of a slapdash job. Besides FolkLife there are dozens of festivals at the Mall every year, this is something that has been done a hundred times. Hell, in his first administration, 2019, the SI did a whole audiovisual restaging of the Apollo 11 launch using the Washington Monument as projection screen (THAT was worth the crowd and heat!). But of course, they could not let it be done by the people who always do it, they had to bring their own to improvise on the cheap and pocket the difference. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/489 "2026-06-29T13:47:03Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > If Trump were even just a touch less of a narcissist, he’d have had a party that people would have actually loved, even amongst all the other crap going on these days, Narcissist or not, I do not attend party’s thrown by complete and total assholes. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/490 "2026-06-29T13:50:01Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > party’s thrown by complete and total assholes But that’s kind of the point - it wouldn’t have been _his_ party. It would have been someone else’s party happening on his watch, which is what it was supposed to be before he started mucking about with everything. Sometimes the best leadership is just recognizing when to get out of the way and let things happen. But of course, Trump is incapable of that. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/491 "2026-06-29T13:50:02Z")
Right. The non-narcissist would have allowed the party to be thrown by the Park Service, Smithsonian, and District organizations and independent sponsors under America250 in a normal manner for the enjoyment of all and the commemoration of history. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/492 "2026-06-29T13:53:22Z")
We will have a party like no other when Trump is removed. That I would attend. I’m gonna put up an American flag when he is out of office. Gonna turn on my outdoor festive lights as well. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/493 "2026-06-29T13:54:28Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Hell, in his first administration, 2019, the SI did a whole audiovisual restaging of the Apollo 11 launch using the Washington Monument as projection screen (THAT was worth the crowd and heat!). I was thinking about this Smithsonian Institute issue yesterday. It highlights how stupid Trump really is. His whole schtick is going on about wanting to “make America great again”, and “be respected around the world”. But here you have the SI, which is legitimately both one of the greatest museum systems in the world, and also a celebration of American greatness. People go to Washington just to visit it (I did that 20 years ago myself!). It’s reputation on the world stage is exactly what Trump claims to want, and yet, he has mucked about with it so much, that he’s lost what they had. Paved paradise, and put up a parking lot, as the old song says. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/494 "2026-06-29T14:11:56Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > Paved paradise, and put up a parking lot, as the old song says. And the parking lot immediately starts to crack and crumble, since it was a no-bid contract rush job done by a contractor who was not qualified to do the work. trump claims vandalism by the ‘lunatic left’ and has people randomly arrested and charged with destroying his big, beautiful parking lot. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/495 "2026-06-29T14:15:57Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > If Trump were even just a touch less of a narcissist, That’s the Catch-22. If he were a touch less of a narcissist, it’s doubtful he’d have won election and wouldn’t have been in position to do any fairs, great or not. That’s the quality the cultists admire and wish to emulate. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/496 "2026-06-29T14:46:25Z")
> [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Is that their fulltime Army job, playing in a rock band? I’m not going to say that’s not important, it’s just that…I don’t know how to finish this sentence. My high school band teacher got hired as a musician in the Marine band. He wasn’t a Marine before he joined. Now he’s a Marine, with the Marine haircut and everything. This was like, 1996 or so and he’s still in it. “The President’s Own.” He’s in the band that plays “Hail to the Chief” and stuff. [Here’s a sheet from marines.mil about being in the band as a career.](https://www.marineband.marines.mil/Portals/175/Docs/Career%20Information/Career_Info_2021.pdf) I know my college band director had been a trombone player in the Army band during Vietnam. An old article in the school paper says he “quit school to join the Army as a musician.” His group was then sent to Vietnam " the band were flown by helicopter to areas where soldiers were staked out; they would play 45-minute to one hour sets, then move on to the next encampment to repeat the performance." Wild. Anyway, I’m sure the musicians’ full time jobs are to be in the Army Band, and then they all join different smaller ensembles like the rock band, and, surprisingly, the Latin band. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/497 "2026-06-29T15:20:33Z")
> [@solost](#): > > And the parking lot immediately starts to crack and crumble, since it was a no-bid contract rush job done by a contractor who was not qualified to do the work. trump claims vandalism by the ‘lunatic left’ and has people randomly arrested and charged with destroying his big, beautiful parking lot. You forgot the part where they install chainlink fence around the parking lot making it inaccessible. [![](https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/10c5c86/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4977x3318+0+0/resize/2880x1920!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F42%2F6b%2F2cd175f753b7a0d1d95aec42c6a7%2F415d5052f2f94ddb8dfd566e1021d21a) ](https://dims.apnews.com/dims4/default/10c5c86/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4977x3318+0+0/resize/2880x1920!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2F42%2F6b%2F2cd175f753b7a0d1d95aec42c6a7%2F415d5052f2f94ddb8dfd566e1021d21a) ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/498 "2026-06-29T16:11:52Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > This was like, 1996 or so and he’s still in it. “The President’s Own.” He’s in the band that plays “Hail to the Chief” and stuff. > > [Here’s a sheet from marines.mil about being in the band as a career.](https://www.marineband.marines.mil/Portals/175/Docs/Career%20Information/Career_Info_2021.pdf) And as noted in the publication, this particular “President’s Own” elite band’s members are exempt from completing regular recruit training and from “secondary combat role” (aka “every Marine a rifleman”). By contrast someone joining as a regular musician in the applicable MOS or rating (depending on service), must audition to qualify but _also_ complete the usual entry and continuing training requirements of enlisted personnel. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/499 "2026-06-29T16:16:26Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > My high school band teacher got hired as a musician in the Marine band. He wasn’t a Marine before he joined. Now he’s a Marine, with the Marine haircut and everything. This was like, 1996 or so and he’s still in it. “The President’s Own.” He’s in the band that plays “Hail to the Chief” and stuff. A summer music camp friend of mine had a multi-year stint in the Marine band, complete with haircut. She’s now some kind of fashion influencer. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470/500 "2026-06-29T16:18:59Z")
> [@solost](#): > > the parking lot immediately starts to crack and crumble, since it was a no-bid contract rush job done by a contractor who was not qualified to do the work. trump claims vandalism by the ‘lunatic left’ and has people randomly arrested and charged with destroying his big, beautiful parking lot. I thought that was the situation with the reflecting pool. I didn’t realize there was a parking lot in the same predicament. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470.md?page=24) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freedom-250-the-great-american-state-fair/1030470.md?page=26)