Trump should butt out of Independence Day celebrations

President Trump and his extravagant ego are both out of line in their insistence that he be in charge of, make a speech at, and further increase the already huge size of the annual Independence Day celebration in Washington, D.C.

The problem is not so much the idea, in theory, that a nation’s head of state should lead the celebration of the nation’s birthday, in a sort of apolitical way. Instead, the first of several problems is that in the United States, the head of state is also a partisan political leader, and thus by his very nature, he can add an element of divisiveness to a celebration that should be unifying.