How Trump Put Himself in the Middle of Americas 250th

The celebration of the 250th anniversary of America’s independence was marked with the pomp and outsize circumstance that President Trump promised, and throughout it he paid homage to the person he cast as an embodiment of patriotism: himself.Mr.Trump capped off the weekslong celebration with a speech on Saturday night on the National Mall, where he praised those who founded the country and shed blood fighting for it.

But as he had in virtually every other commemoration speech, he couldn’t help but dwell on his own battles and portray the state of the union as stronger than ever under his leadership.“Unlike so many others in the world, in this country we have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal justice under the law — although I wasn’t treated that well,” Mr.Trump said.

“But we won’t get into that.”“We had the American dream,” he added.“We never had the American dream, however, like we have it right now.”Branding himself onto America’s semiquincentennial celebration seemed his plan from the start.

Mr.Trump propped up a commission aligned with his agenda in place of one funded by Congress to organize festivities.

His face was splashed on commemorative items like passports and coins.He even billed the July 4 celebration at the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument as “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all,” and boasted that some of the “patriotic melodies” came from his personal playlist.In the process, he frequently seemed to conflate allegiance to him with patriotism.When he announced in May that he would headline a rally in place of several musicians who dropped out of the Great American State Fair, which his commission created, he referred to himself as “the man who loves our Country more than anyone else.” As for his desired attendees: “Only Great Patriots invited,” he wrote.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your ...