When it comes to patriotism, Americans have never been a subtle lot. We love big flags, giant barbecues and a God-and-country-themed diorama, beer cozy or pet costume. We cheer fighter jets trailing red, white and blue smoke. We love a marching band. Every year, all over this country on July 4, we turn gorging on hot dogs into a form of competitive love for our country as we salute our nation’s independence from a king.
It used to be that the holiday brought out dad jeans and cropped tops and everyone looked slightly embarrassing, but the atmosphere was good-hearted and welcoming. Everyone could delight in wearing Old Glory to the national cookout.
It was kitsch, and it was silly. But it also left me feeling exhilarated and proud, especially in Washington, where I first moved over 30 years ago to work for The Washington Post. The city revealed itself as an often inefficient but also idealistic place — filled with ambitious overachievers who chose public service instead of the riches of Wall Street or Silicon Valley. In particular, the women I met and began to call my friends were accomplished in fields I could barely comprehend: counterterrorism, international aid and development, world banking.
During one of my early summers here, a friend who was reporting on the Clinton White House invited me to be her plus-one to watch the Fourth of July fireworks from the White House grounds. The explosion of color was glorious. Wherever you might have perched to watch the fireworks, seeing them over the nation’s capital was special — not because the show was immense but because it was here. There is nothing like watching red, white and blue rockets and sparklers against the backdrop of the White House, the Washington Monument and the National Mall.
It’s again the Fourth of July — this one the zenith in a yearlong celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday. Familiar red, white and blue bunting hangs from the windows of Washington’s monumental federal buildings as well as its charming rowhouses. Flags the size of lap pools drape entire structures, and visitors to the capital wrap themselves in the equivalent of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The usual flurry of tourists has grown into a cartoonish display of holiday visitors, one-upping one another with T-shirts that scream U.S.A., flag-striped board shorts and star-sequined baseball caps.
But this year, I can barely tolerate the sight of red, white and blue. When combined into a maximalist display of nationalist cheerleading, the colors make my heart ache.
The flags on federal buildings are grand, but they hang alongside banners featuring President Trump’s scowling face. The president spent the better part of the spring focused on cleaning and repairing long-dormant fountains in some of Washington’s grandest circles and parks, including the Christopher Columbus Memorial Fountain in front of Union Station.
The white granite sculpture, once the color of a dirty ashtray, now gleams. It’s a wonder to see water dance in a fountain that had been dry for nearly 20 years. But that pleasure comes with the knowledge that the repairs were orchestrated by an administration that sees itself more as a regime than as the caretakers of a democracy.
The breezy image of “American flag blue” has become associated with the smelly, swampy mess the president has made of the once elegant but temperamental Reflecting Pool. It’s now fenced off, like so much else in Washington right now, from Lafayette Park to much of the National Mall.
And just a few weeks ago, the president held an Ultimate Fighting Championship on the South Lawn for his birthday, turning the stately public rooms of the White House into a glorified locker room.
All of this is in service to a single man’s vision of America.
The aesthetics of patriotism in the nation’s capital no longer involve picnic baskets, overstuffed coolers and L.L. Bean canvas tote bags. Gone is the aspirational truth that all are welcome to come to the nation’s backyard: friends, family and new arrivals, too. When people assemble on the National Mall to watch the fireworks, the spectacle will be designated a National Special Security Event — akin to an inauguration or State of the Union address. With the heightened vigilance, visitors will have to bring government-issued identification and pass through metal detectors. The Secret Service has forbidden coolers and lawn chairs and Frisbees. We may not have a traditional dress, other than jeans and a T-shirt, but we now have a tradition of toting our belongings to public events in clear plastic bags, snapping photographs of our most beautiful monuments through a maze of nonscalable fencing and being greeted at seemingly every corner by an all-hands security presence that includes U.S. marshals, park police, Metropolitan Police, Drug Enforcement Administration officers, Secret Service and the National Guard. Even the dogs are on patrol.
It might be tempting to say that these are unusual circumstances, rare events. But this is what Washington looks like even on quiet days. The barricades don’t all go away. Those that remain are cracked open just a smidge for grudging passage, but they can be slammed shut at a moment’s notice.
Federal Washington is looking sketchy as the country celebrates its birthday. It’s looking defensive and paranoid. In recent months, Capitol Police checkpoints have been installed on the street that separates my home from my hardware store. Dupont Circle, the landmark that gives the surrounding neighborhood — with its deep roots in L.G.B.T.Q. history — its name, was fenced off by National Park Police during the Capital Pride Parade on June 20.
Only a few days earlier, as television cameras panned the audience spread out on the lawn for the June 18 opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, I noticed how welcoming the scene looked. The crowd was diverse in race, age and gender. There wasn’t a lot of red, white and blue in that Chicago crowd. On the lawn at Chicago’s Midway Plaisance, the site of the official watch party for the center’s opening, women held a Juneteenth flag, neighbors wore a mishmash of T-shirts and jeans. The audience listened to Jennifer Hudson sing the national anthem, to Christina Aguilera perform “What a Wonderful World,” at the suggestion of President Barack Obama, and to John Legend and Common offer a rendition of “Glory,” their paean to social justice.
Four former presidents sat onstage with civility and comity. Michelle Obama spoke forthrightly about the hurdles that had been strewn in her husband’s path.
“Eight years in the crucible, and not once did you melt from the heat, not once did you let it harden you,” she said. “And to do it all as a first, and the higher standard that comes with all that.”
These are snapshots from the sort of celebration that I think the 250th birthday of the country deserves, ones that speak of neighborliness, ease, pride and dignity. They depict more thoughtful, generous and inclusive expressions of patriotism than most anything from the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, or the promise, by Mr. Trump, that this year’s fireworks display will break a Guinness World Record by exploding more than 860,000 shells. But before the pyrotechnic celebration can begin, the president will speak. And if he is true to form, he will speak and speak and speak.
I want to delight in the sights and sounds of fireworks over the nation’s capital the same way I did when I first came to Washington. The way that I did just a few years ago,.
The way I hope to again. Someday.
