America 250 Warding off Trumpist Takeover

Nearly a fortnight ago I shared Bert Dunkerly’s Emerging Revolutionary War post about Sestercentennial logos, observing at the end that “the America 250 Facebook feed is being politically partisan and literally divisive.”

A few days later, the nonpartisan U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission in charge of America 250 fired its executive director, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, at Newsweek, and on C.N.N.

The commission stated that this administrator “initiated a security breach of a Commission social media account, attempted to procure the resignations of multiple commissioners by misrepresenting himself as acting on behalf of Congressional leadership, and engaged in multiple other serious and repeated breaches of authority and trust.” It accused him of having “engaged in unauthorized actions related to Commission approved programming, finances, and communications.”

In particular, weeks ago the commission “removed its website and social media platforms” from this administrator’s control. He then accessed those accounts to send out the Facebook post that I called politically partisan and others like it.

That now-former executive director is twenty-five years old. He was previously an assistant to Melania Trump as First Lady and a producer at Fox News. The Trump White House installed him at America 250 and assigned him to organize the U.S. Army parade in Washington, D.C., on Donald Trump’s birthday. The commission never officially voted to approve that parade, which received criticism for many reasons.

Meanwhile, the White House is proceeding with plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence in 2026 with various other forms of trumpery: gladiatorial games on the White House lawn, videos of historical figures created by theocratic propagandists, and pitting state fairs against each other to be designated by Trump as “most patriotic.”