Two parties, one birthday
The United States turned 250 today. It could not agree on who gets to host.
America marked its 250th birthday this weekend with two rival celebrations. One was organized by America250, the bipartisan commission Congress created in 2016 for precisely this occasion. The other was run by Freedom 250, a task force the White House established in 2025 and chaired by the president himself, complete with a UFC fight on the South Lawn and what was promised as the largest fireworks display in history.
The division is not merely ceremonial. Congress appropriated $150 million for the official commission. By early this year, it had received $25 million. Meanwhile the foundation housing the president’s task force collected nearly $80 million in federal grants for the same anniversary, and National Park Service employees were instructed to replace the commission’s logo with the task force’s insignia.
Jubilees are usually read as pageantry. They are better read as audits. What a state celebrates, and who controls the celebrating, reveals where legitimacy actually sits. The Fourth of July commemorates a document written to constrain executive power. Its 250th anniversary was captured by the executive, financed accordingly, and rebranded mid-stream, while the body Congress created watched three quarters of its budget evaporate.
There was one commemoration this year without a rival host, a diverted appropriation, or a competing logo. It took place on June 17, when Emmanuel Macron hosted Trump at Versailles, where the treaty ending the Revolutionary War was signed in 1783. The men who wrote the Declaration listed their grievances against a king. Two hundred and fifty years later, the only place their republic’s birthday could be celebrated without a fight over who owns it was a palace built for one.