FBI THWARTS EXPLOSIVE DRONE ATTACK AGAINST UFC FREEDOM 250 FIGHT

Since the dawn of the republic, “statecraft as soulcraft” types have insisted the office needs to set a certain tone. In the “Titles Debate” of 1789, John Adams argued that only a posh designator like “His Highness” would command proper respect. But, as Adams’s opponents successfully argued, investing the office with too much awe and reverence risks clouding the public mind and allowing the officeholder greater leeway for abuse.

Since he crashed onto the scene, Trump’s done an “amazing job” puncturing the mystique of the presidency. At the start of Trump’s first term, Jack Shafer puckishly celebrated the new president for classing the joint down. Trump had already “sanded the faux majesty off the office and freed the masses to direct their worship to other, more credible gods,” Shafer cheered. “At the Trump White House, gauche is the new regal.”

In his second term, Trump has turned the knob up to 11: Goodbye Camelot, hello monster-truck rally. We’re long past the days when George H.W. Bush pitched horseshoes with Queen Elizabeth on the South Lawn. Sunday’s slugfest featured two military flyovers, bros in Affliction T-shirts packing the Ellipse like drunks at Andrew Jackson’s inauguration, and every square inch of the event space bedecked with corporate logos: Celebrate America — brought to you by Crypto.com and Ram trucks! 

It was all, admittedly, pretty tacky. But there’s something at least as off-putting about the Washington, D.C., elite’s response. One of Washington’s myriad good-government NGOs, the Public Integrity Project, even tried to quash the event with killjoy lawfare. PIP’s plaintiffs were two local retirees who claimed Trump’s bloody birthday bash would cause them profound “dignitary and emotional harms.” Your honor, this “grotesque,” “hideous,” and “disgusting” display wounds our “experience of beauty [and] feelings of national pride” — please help. 

PIP hitched their critique to semi-colorable legal claims: violation of National Park Service regulations, lack of congressional authorization for the “Claw” — and did you people even file an environmental impact statement before gouging the South Lawn? But at bottom, the suit was a quixotic effort to use the machinery of justice to fight bad taste — rightly rejected by the court. 

A DOJ spokesman called the suit “a desperate last-ditch attempt to attack the celebration of America’s 250th Birthday by people who hate fun.” Perhaps Trump’s critics should resist leaning so hard into the caricature. 

Trump thrives when his opponents emit joyless, schoolmarmy indignation. In the run-up to his first term, he reportedly instructed top aides “to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals.” There’s no script Trump likes better than the HR scolds versus “Donnie from Queens.” Turn up your nose at his outer borough boorishness and he’ll laugh at you from the back of the garbage truck while you lose.

Trump’s hyperaggressive approach to executive power has given us plenty of real harms to worry about. Whatever damage his redecorating schemes are doing to the East Wing and South Lawn, surely the wrecking ball he’s taking to the separation of powers should be a far bigger concern. Maybe focus on what matters and let the “dignitary and emotional harms” of the Trump presidency roll off your back? 

MOTHER’S TIP HELPED UNRAVEL WHITE HOUSE UFC DRONE PLOT: AFFIDAVIT

Besides (sue me), it was fun: fireworks over the Washington Monument, a successful, post-knockout marriage proposal in the Octagon, and not one of seven fights left to the judges’ cards. Were you not entertained? 

Sorry, Kristol, but America is “vulgar, violent, and commercial” — and always has been. Trump has brought that aspect of the national character front and center, and whether he’s more symptom or cause, there’s no going back. We might as well enjoy the show. 

Gene Healy is the author of The Cult of the Presidency.