{"id":4238,"date":"2026-11-13T21:58:25","date_gmt":"2026-11-13T18:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/?page_id=4238"},"modified":"2026-11-13T21:58:25","modified_gmt":"2026-11-13T18:58:25","slug":"a-divided-america-celebrates-its-250th-birthday","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/?page_id=4238","title":{"rendered":"A divided America celebrates its 250th birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The past, like everything else, has become a partisan battleground<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Nov 10th 2025| By James Bennet, Lexington columnist, The Economist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump<\/small> may not be the most literary of men, but he hit upon the perfect metaphor when he proclaimed that he would mark America\u2019s 250th birthday by hosting a brawl on the White House lawn. The coming year will feature plenty of parades, fireworks and commemorative coins. Yet the octagon cage to be erected on the south lawn ahead of July 4th, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC<\/small>) bruisers who will grapple within it, will best represent the state of American society, at least as channelled through its politics, in the second year of Mr Trump\u2019s second term. Only up to a point, though: the UFC<\/small>, unlike American politics, still honours some rules of sportsmanship, forbidding abusive language and \u201cgroin attacks of any kind\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As America turns 250, we trace the triumphs, contradictions and arguments that have shaped the world\u2019s first liberal republic<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The year-long commemoration of the semiquincentennial (for those who collect such terms) is shaping up not as mere metaphor but as a straightforward display of America\u2019s fractured state. Two rival national commissions are planning events. In 2016 Congress created the America250 Commission, its leadership formed of worthies drawn equally from the Democratic and Republican parties. Its honorary co-chairs are the Obamas and Bushes, and it aspires to a nonpartisan representation of the American story. Representatives of the Trump administration also have roles in that commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, on returning to office, Mr Trump issued an executive order establishing his own \u201cTask Force 250\u201d to \u201chonour the history of our great nation\u201d. He is the chair and the leadership is composed entirely of appointees in his administration. How the two commissions will co-ordinate remains unclear. Will Mr Trump\u2019s task-force promote the exhibition about George Washington\u2019s history of slavery, planned at his Mount Vernon estate? Will it embrace the \u201cdecolonisation\u201d and \u201cLGBTQ<\/small>+ inclusive\u201d guides proposed by the other task-force?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The past has become a partisan battleground in America. To Mr Trump it is the left that struck first, toppling statues of Confederate generals and even Teddy Roosevelt. Part of \u201cmaking America great again\u201d involves overcoming what Mr Trump and his followers see as a long-standing distortion of America\u2019s story by leftists in academia and the media. In 1976, America\u2019s institutions were much healthier<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Complaining of a \u201cconcerted\u201d effort over the past decade to \u201crewrite our nation\u2019s history\u201d in order to foster \u201ca sense of national shame\u201d, Mr Trump issued an executive order in March 2025 to audit how the American story is told at federal historical sites and within the museums of the Smithsonian Institution. His goal is to extol American greatness and extirpate \u201cdivisive narratives\u201d. In September the Washington Post<\/em> reported that the administration had ordered the removal of signs and exhibits related to slavery at several national parks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When America celebrated its bicentennial in 1976, the country was struggling though a divisive era, marked by assassinations, the revelations of the Watergate scandal and defeat in Vietnam. Trust in government had collapsed from 77% in 1964 to less than half that level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a bipartisan commission, the government succeeded in presenting a patriotic pageant. A \u201cFreedom Train\u201d carried foundational documents of the country and evidence of national achievements, such as moon rocks, from town to town, and a flotilla of tall ships sailed into New York\u2019s harbour. President Gerald Ford, locked in a difficult presidential campaign, relished the celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ford exaggerated when he later wrote that, thanks to the bicentennial, \u201cthe nation\u2019s wounds had healed.\u201d But at least it came under criticism from both the left (for covering up America\u2019s sins), and from the right (for dwelling upon them). Distrust in government was then a bipartisan affair. It has since become deeply polarised, with supporters of the party in power having a far higher opinion of government competence. Back in 1976 America\u2019s institutions were much healthier, too, from Congress to the courts to the news media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the Ford administration had less imagination than Mr Trump\u2019s. Even such an ambitious official as Henry Kissinger, then secretary of state, told Ford \u201cthere is nothing we can do about the past.\u201d Mr Trump would never settle for such defeatism. He may not be the reader Kissinger was, but he seems to have a firmer grasp of George Orwell\u2019s dictum that whoever controls the present can control the past\u2014and that whoever controls the past, controls the future. \u25a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The past, like everything else, has become a partisan battleground Nov 10th 2025| By James Bennet, Lexington columnist, The Economist Donald Trump may not be the most literary of men, but he hit upon the perfect metaphor when he proclaimed that he would mark America\u2019s 250th birthday by hosting a brawl on the White House […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_regular_price":[],"currency_symbol":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4238","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"post_slider_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","post_slider_layout_landscape_large":"","post_slider_layout_portrait_large":"","post_slider_layout_square_large":"","post_slider_layout_landscape":"","post_slider_layout_portrait":"","post_slider_layout_square":"","full":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4240,"href":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4238\/revisions\/4240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kaf1.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}