As I mentioned yesterday, for many years my wife and I have celebrated this holiday in Maine or elsewhere and we were just as happy to be away from the hubbub of the Nation’s Capital. Not a fan of large crowds, I have only seen the huge fireworks on National Mall twice in the 44 years we have lived in the Washington, DC area. And I don’t feel the need to fight the crowds and the normally hot and humid weather to try again. Been there. Done that. Finding myself at home this year, I was happy enough to spend a quiet day; just me and the dog, a writing project, and a good book. And besides . . . I had been sheltering in place for 121 days, the temperature was ranging into the 90s, the humidity was thick enough to swim through, and there was not a breath of breeze stirring. No thanks.
As the day began few had any idea how it would all play out. The traditional parade along Independence Avenue had been cancelled by Mayor Muriel Bowser and the city hoped residents and visitors alike would heed the earnest request to stay at home, or if they did decide to come into the city, to respect the strict social distancing measures and crowd size limits in effect, and to wear protective face masks. The traditional fireworks display on the National Mall was still scheduled for the evening as it is administered by the Department of the Interior and the National Park Service which are not required to adhere to city restrictions. As at Mount Rushmore, the National Park Service announced that the wearing of protective face masks and the maintenance of proper social distancing would not be enforced. Insanity continued to prevail.
The National Park Service predicted upwards of 300,000 would attend the festivities and during the morning people began to show up to stake out prime viewing sites to enjoy the festivities, including a military flyover and the massive fireworks display billed by Trump as a "Salute to America." After his speech at Mount Rushmore the day before, I wondered whose America was he referring to? Groups of protesters also converged on the Mall and local streets were closed to traffic and the areas around the White House and the Lincoln Memorial were sealed off. There were a few motley demonstrations as well as sit-ins which had begun already the night before in front of the Supreme Court and at the recently renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza just north of the White House and Lafayette Park. This was the scene of last month’s clash between peaceful demonstrators and police and National Guard ordered there by Trump so that he might walk across the park to St John’s Church to hold up a Bible for a bizarre photo-op. I was sickened by a report that Washington Police were flanking a group of several dozen Trump supporters who marched past the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the Mall, some of them using hand gestures known to symbolize white supremacy. Not surprisingly, few were wearing masks.
By early afternoon local WTOP radio reported that the crowds on and around the Mall were remarkably "sparse," reminiscent of the "crowds" that attended Trump’s January 2017 inauguration). About half the small crowd appeared to be wearing face masks according to WTOP. Trump must have been furious and I wonder whom he will blame for this? Serves him right, but think of all the wasted taxpayer money squandered to stroke his tender ego.
Firecrackers began to pop in my suburban neighborhood during the late afternoon. Otherwise it had been a normal, quiet Saturday afternoon here in Historic Mount Rainier, Maryland. The peace and quiet was suddenly shattered shortly after 7pm when the US Air Force Thunderbirds and the US Navy Blue Angels precision flight demonstration squadrons, part of the planned military flyover, passed very low directly over my house follow by a B-2 stealth bomber with a fighter escort, as well as a variety of other military vintage and modern aircraft. The windows rattled and the dogs began to howl. In all the years I have lived here I don’t ever recall seeing military aircraft fly over at such a low altitude other than the morning of September 11, 2001.
Local private firework displays (official fireworks shows in several regional towns and counties had been cancelled due to the pandemic) crackle, joining the growing cacophony shortly after sunset at 8:30pm, and just after 9pm I began to hear the steady crumping of the firework explosions over the National Mall. We live only three miles away as the crow flies, and less than a mile from here is a ridge line, one of the highest elevations in the District of Columbia, where one is offered a broad panoramic view of the city with its monuments, the Potomac River, and Virginia beyond. On an exceptionally clear day one can see the faint outline of the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the west. It is a favorite spot to watch the fireworks. I remained at home as planned.
Only after the smoke from the 45-minute display slowly drifted away did I begin to read reports of Trump’s earlier address to a by-invitation-only audience on the South Lawn of the White House. I was quite certain it would essentially be a repetition of his ludicrous indictment of the many domestic enemies who do not share his astigmatic and fascist vision of an America in which people are divided rather than united in a common cause. This vision. Trump announced, would be achieved by "defeating the radical left, the Marxists, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and people who in many instances have absolutely no clue what they are doing." The last reference seems to better describe Trump and his fanatical base. He promised to "safeguard our values," but are these really our values? "We will defend, protect and preserve the American way of life which began in 1492 when Columbus discovered America." May I remind the president that Columbus did not discover America. His three voyages to the New World brought him to the Antilles and the coasts of Central and South America; he never stepped foot on the North American continent presently occupied by the United States of America. The first European to do so was Leif Erikson centuries before Columbus was born. The America Trump was referring to did not exist until July 1776 when it declared its independence from Great Britain. He is the president. He should know that. After all, this is what we were celebrating yesterday! He seems to hold tight to the myth so many of us were taught in elementary school. What Columbus brought to this hemisphere was a cruel and at times genocidal colonial occupation, torture, and disease epidemics. I am not really surprised that Trump has a particular affinity for the likes of Columbus.
We don’t want to erase our history, but on the same token, we need not honor nor commemorate the darkest and most regrettable chapters of that history or traitors who for whatever reason took up arms against this country. These monuments in question need not be destroyed, but they should be removed from public lands and placed into museums where they can be presented in a proper context to better educate our citizenry. I am a historian by both inclination and profession and I have no desire to erase our history. It was the 20th century thinker George Santayana (1863-1952) who reminded us that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Trump is a perfect example of this caveat. We are not trying to indoctrinate our young, as Trump alleges; we only want to present them with evidence and arguments and encourage debate. What is wrong with that? Do we want informed citizens or lemmings headed for the abyss?
There is a different America out there than the one Trump envisions. There are no simple solutions and we must all be up to the challenge. The Great American Experiment remains a work in progress. We must continue to work together to create an America that works for all of us regardless of who we are, where we come from, what gods we worship, or what languages we speak.
The holiday is thankfully behind us. Now it is time to look to the future and the elections just four months away. We must speak truth to power . . . and ignorance . . . and work hard to sweep this national aberration into the dustbin of history and refocus our priorities and return to the values that made us united, strong and determined in the first place. We will have many challenges to confront. The job will be difficult, but the results will be worth the sweat and tears.
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