No, MAGA Didn't Take Over America’s 250th Birthday

Flopping Aces ^ | 06-25-24 | Brother Bob

[Starman417]

While we're still a year away from the America 250 celebration, The Radical Left is already melting down that President Trump is actually making an effort to make America 250... Pro-American. The hard left publications Mother Jones and The Atlantic dropped their rage posts, and they read exactly as one would expect. Mother Jones offers How MAGA Took Over America’s 250th Birthday. Amanda Moore and Dan Friedman waste no time, pointing out that the Army's 250th birthday celebration parade finished just steps away from Trump's January 6th election integrity rallying speech. Even more sinister, both were organized by the same political operatives! They actually engage in a bit of journalism, digging up the permits to show Megan Powers name appearing on both gatherings' permits. Yes, we are supposed to be horrified that President Trump would employ the same person with a very specific skillset to organize both events - bring the fainting couch and smelling salts!

They proceed to complain that A250, supposedly nonpartisan, has been flooded with MAGA loyalists. I'd be interested o see what the makeup of the group was during the Biden's Autopen* administration, but given how today's Democrats openly hate America I'm fine with excluding them. As the definition of bipartisanship goes, "Republicans get to be Bi, and the Dems get to be Partisan!" Thank you thank you, I'll be here all week, and at Caesar's on Saturday - tip your bartenders! We then get some more intellectually lazy arguments, such as how the Army's parade had them spending $45 million on a parade, which one could point out is considerably less than Barry O and Biden's Autopen* spent on Iran's nuclear weapons program. They also grouse about one of the senior advisors being Chris LaCivita, (emphasis mine) "the former Trump campaign co-chair who once masterminded the “swift boat” smear campaign targeting John Kerry’s Vietnam service". And for those of you who are not fluent in Leftspeak, "Smear Campaign" is their way of saying, "Tells the truth about Democrats."

Moore and Friedman then fleshed out another complaint, "Advisory councils, each dedicated to making the anniversary events resonate with different groups of Americans, have been quietly removed from the website." Because as anyone who has ever updated a website for an organization, any changes to the site require a formal press release. Even more horrific, conservative leaning business who donated to the Trump campaign are also contributing to A250! We then get some more anger via direct quotes:

The sweeping changes have angered some of those who spent years working on the celebration. “America250 has been hijacked,” a former advisory council member told Mother Jones. “It’s disgusting.”

The “cascade” of MAGA-connected individuals surrounding America250 “is a further example of how corrupt Trump is,” said Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), a member of the congressionally created US Semiquincentennial Commission, which is closely affiliated with the project. “It’s a damn shame A250 has to be blemished with Trump…It’s unfortunate that this egoistical maniac is the president when we are supposed to be showcasing our country in a bipartisan or nonpartisan way.”

I'd like to know who that "former advisory council member" is, but looking up Bonnie Coleman, her own Twitter feed shows that Democrats' offering to this effort is someone in direct support of insurrection.  Although I found it amusing that when I looked up her personal page on the America 250 site... it isn't there. After a few hundred more words grousing about funding and leadership, we get to what may be the one possibly valid complaint I read in the two articles:

Sara Capen, executive director of the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area and a former member of the Civics, History, & America’s Future Advisory Council, lamented the apparent elimination of the group’s advisory councils.

“My experience with A250 wasn’t about Philadelphia and the Liberty Bell, but how can we make sure the stories of farmers in Iowa are part of this, the stories of the people of the Mississippi Delta?” Capen said. “We tell the story of steel workers, the coal region heritage foundation in West Virginia. How can we make sure the coal workers’ story is told, how they shaped America? We wanted that included.”

Last July, A250 held a conference in DC, where council members were assured that their mission and organization would not be affected by the outcome of the election—a true nonpartisan effort. But now, the organization has transformed into something that does not need heritage areas advocating for rural America.

Without having any inside info, this seems to be a fair point. But given what I know about Donald Trump and The Radical Leftists that have seized control of the Democrat Party, I can predict predict how both scenarios would play out. In the Trump version, we A250 gets representation as suggested above, minus any Marxists, or at least any overt ones. While the Lefties will use the Motte and Bailey approach  - Maybe include Rosa Parks' story alongside George Floyd. When some Normal suggests not including a criminal like Floyd, we'll get hysterics that we're trying to erase Rosa Parks since she also broke the law! The sad part is that just a few years ago I would have chided myself for thinking of something this stupid - these days I'd be more surprised if Leftists didn't adopt that tactic than if they did. Fittingly, the story concludes with a quote from Watson Coleman:

“I think that this parade and its association with America250 is very unfortunate,” said Watson Coleman, the New Jersey Democrat on the Semiquincentennial Commission. “I respect our military, our Army. I respect celebrating their 250 years. But we don’t boastfully show our might in parades.” The troops, she said, shouldn’t be sent through the streets of the nation’s capital “so they can salute some authoritarian leader, which is what this looks like to me.”

Going back to the tweet of hers I posted earlier, it's hard to buy respect for our military when you support physical assault of law enforcement at the hands of elected Democrat officials. That brings us to The Atlantic's piece, where Michael Scherer, Ashley Parker, and Missy Ryan drop over 1,400 words of anger. Feel free to click on it, but suffice to say I read so you don't have to. Don't worry, thanks to redundancy the rest of this post won't be as long as the Mother Jones summary.  Let's start with the opening two paragraphs:

Just four months ago, the Fox News host Steve Doocy gave a social-media send-off to his young producer Ariel Abergel, who had announced that he was leaving the network. Alongside a montage of the two traveling through Iowa, Doocy reminisced about their years together and affectionately razzed Abergel as “Ari the driver.”

Now Abergel, who finished college in 2021 and is in his mid-20s, finds himself in a much—much—bigger producing job: He’s been tasked by President Donald Trump with overseeing the nation’s 250th birthday celebration as executive director of America250. The congressionally authorized festivities, which kick off tomorrow with a Washington parade to honor the Army, are backed by more than $100 million in expected congressional appropriations and are supposed to be a nonpolitical, nonpartisan affair. But Abergel’s new role has prompted concerns even from some Trump loyalists, as well as a backlash among participants who worry that his installation portends a bid by Trump to channel the patriotism surrounding the nation’s semiquincentennial into a celebration of himself.

Let's unpack the grievances, some more subtle than others:

[bk1000]

Liberals want to tell me what to do. They want control of every aspect of my life. I simply will not allow it.

[nopardons]

BTTT

[No name given]

Neither will I. The only egotistical maniacs I see are the demonrats.

[No name given]

America’s 250th birthday celebration will be very glorious to see.

[j.havenfarm]

A singularly poorly written article that would require one to read the Mother Jones article to make any sense of it.

But it’s something I’ve been thinking about: we need to make sure that the leftist message isn’t the 250th birthday message. The “tell us your story” approach to history is a leftist construct to push DEI. I was just at the Museum of American History in DC and there are numerous displays on that theme: here is the Latino history area. Here the women, here the Asians, etc etc.

Had Harris been elected, the semiquincentennial would have been all about what a miserable place America is, how we’ve “not always lived up to the values of the Declaration of Independence “ We need a proper and patriotic celebration. And I’d note that getting a patriotic spirit going would probably help in the midterms

[No name given]

‘We need a proper and patriotic celebration. And I’d note that getting a patriotic spirit going would probably help in the midterms’

I couldn’t agree more!

[GOPJ]

While we're still a year away from the America 250 celebration, The Radical Left is already melting down that President Trump is actually making an effort to make America 250... Pro-American.

Leftwing crazies hate our country - three cheers for Trump for standing up to the creeps.

[griswold3]

‘We need a proper and patriotic celebration. And I’d note that getting a patriotic spirit going would probably help in the midterms’
Agree also. The Dems celebration will consist of Emotional Blackmail. Shame and Blame to get more US treasury funds to fix it