USA Today's review of Trump's Great American Shit Show. "repellent schlock" [View all]

Last edited Tue Jun 30, 2026, 04:46 PM - Edit history (1)

My apologies to DUer Uncle Joe who had posted this same USA Today article before I posted it.

Trump's Great American State Fair is a fabulous flop | Opinion
In the heat wave that has consumed most of America, I am cooled by the
country’s frosty reception of the fair, and shamelessly drunk on schadenfreude.

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The food is expensive, nobody is attending it, it is tacky, there are no places to sit down
to eat your expensive food, and he has armed members of the National Guard patrolling the
grounds.

Btw it will be 104 on Thursday and Trump is giving the key note address on the 4th of July.

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“ This spectacle on the National Mall in Washington, DC, part of Trump’s Trump-centric celebration of America’s 250th anniversary, is like watching your high school bully host a party that no one attends. It’s a daily humiliation for a wildly unpopular president who coopted what should be a unifying national celebration and turned it into repellent schlock.”

Snip

In a social media post on June 29, Trump ‒ who is definitely not mad ‒ wrote: “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!”

No, I don’t think those two other presidents ‒ or any other past president ‒ could’ve pulled off such a feat. Because I don’t think any previous leader would have made the nation’s semiquincentennial celebration all about himself, or been foolish enough to promote his self-centered celebration as the greatest event in history, setting the stage for inevitable failure.

Up until Trump, our presidents have not been full-blown narcissists who ruin everything they touch. They haven’t divided the country so sharply, or so wholly ignored their own unpopularity and proceeded as if they’re God’s gift to America.

Snip

He has spent outlandish amounts of our money “beautifying” Washington, DC, with projects nobody asked for, from his absurd White House ballroom to his cartoonishly messy and algae-coated refurbishing of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. And he is doing these things not for us, but for himself, driven by a desire to attach his name to all things relating to America’s 250th anniversary.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/06/30/great-american-state-fair-trump-attendance/90741971007/