America’s moral rot and open betrayal of basic decency on display at Trump's fair
A woman on a horse carries a flag past the U.S. Capitol building during a rodeo at the opening of The Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington D.C., U.S., June 25, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
America greets our 250th birthday not as the last, best hope of Earth, but under a noxious cloud of broken promises, betrayed ideals, hateful discourse, public corruption, and petulant, petty public leaders peddling horrendous lies without shame.
A great bulk of everyday people are sinking in a quicksand of endless struggles, feeling desperate, helpless, hopeless, while our feckless, egomaniacal, careless, reckless ruling class showers itself in gaudy, self-obsessed, look-at-me excess.
The most vile aspects of our national character and the worst of the American stereotypes crash around our public space chewing up people’s lives and hawking them into the spittoon of our collective historical shame:
Loud, loudly wrong, ignorant, excessive, might-makes-right, cruelty, armed-to-the-teeth, strutting and striding, bullying, and oh-so-tough.
Oh, so weak.
So very very weak.
So insecure, and so obviously so insecure.
Deluded like children playing at action heroes in their movie-minds, with no care or concept of the depth and breadth and complexity of actual human life in the very real world.
Except children have the capacity for growth and wonder and curiosity impossible for these calcified so-called adults running the country.
The callous selfishness of, Greed-is-good and I’m-gonna-get-mine-so-who-cares-about-anybody-else.
The cowardly myopia of, It-doesn’t-affect-me-so-what-do-I-care.
The chilling ignorance, lack of empathy, lack of humanity, lack of compassion, and lack of historical comprehension spewed in the eternal American sins of continued shameless racism and discrimination being enacted once again as a matter of brutal public policy.
And they think they’re being clever.
They especially think they’re being clever when the courts that they’ve vandalized, radicalized, and politicized officially excuse their atrocious behavior.
This time the pathetic fools declaim, Racism-is-actually-over-it’s-reverse-racism-that’s-the-problem, as they follow the timeless playbook.
And this debased ignorance becomes sanctified in the decisions of the nation’s highest court, to roll back civil rights, voting rights, human rights.
The sick, fetishized cruelty of, Good-I’m-glad-those-people-are-being-hurt-they-deserve-it.
The stone-cold pathological depravity of, Empathy-and-compassion-are-actually-bad-things.
America faces our anniversary as the world’s oldest democracy not as a celebration but a reckoning.
We must now take stock of our situation and decide whether we shall snuff out the remaining embers of our constitutional republic in sacrifice to the egomania and moral rot of the age.
A free people may vote their way out of freedom; that is a free choice, but it is also a robbery of future generations who would never then have any such choice.
This betrayal of future generations steals their birthright, the “apple of gold,” as Abraham Lincoln called it, the “political religion of our nation” enshrined in the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, and never yet fully realized, now being betrayed once again.
Consider the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence in full.
In full is key.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”
It begins with our fundamental equality as human beings — and therefore deserving of the same exact natural rights and dignity no matter who we are, all of us included, nobody left out, all of humanity.
The second sentence does not end at the individualistic “pursuit of happiness,” a common mistake.
It ends much later, not on the note of individualism in the introductory clause, but on the collectivism, collective interest, and supremacy of the people over the government found in its concluding lines.
Because all of this — all of our government, everything you see — is meant to be for the safety and happiness of the people, all the people. Full stop.
That’s so far from reality right now it’s a joke, and that’s where we’ve gone so catastrophically wrong.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The introduction about the individual under the laws of nature is an extension of Lockean thought based on Thomas Aquinas based on a synthesis of Augustine of Hippo and Aristotle:
This fundamental idea that we are all, by our nature, indeed born free in nature, in the full bloom of our individual righteousness of diversity, and we only bind ourselves together voluntarily in what Rousseau called the social contract.
The Declaration acknowledges the greater truth of that bond, and its basis in both our individual natural rights and our free choice of social contract, by proclaiming that all governmental power is derived “from the consent of the governed.”
This is the contract for our collective good, where we recognize that our own narrow self-interest must have limitations to protect the interests of others and our collective interests now and into the future — even and perhaps especially for our ideological opposites — because that’s how we ensure the protection of ourselves, and aspire to liberty and justice for all.
Moreover, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends” — destructive of the people’s natural rights to life and liberty, meant to be secured in the bond of self-government — the people further reserve the right of supremacy over our government to do as we wish to effect our collective safety and happiness.
Put simply, all power is inherent in the people and politicians are nothing but public servants. Do not worship them, ever. They are your employees, nothing more. Hold them accountable, relentlessly.
And if politicians are only serving themselves, if they are only serving their own greed and lust for power and the moneyed elites who plunder and profiteer, and they sacrifice the public good at the altar of power and greed and ego, then they have betrayed the public trust and they are of no use to our self-government in their positions.
Past Americans spilled their blood for the rule of law now being ignored.
Past patriots gave their lives for the freedoms, liberty, and protections now being betrayed.
The birthright of future generations is at stake.
We can continue on in a hateful mess of chaos and destruction, or we can heal and build together.
That decision is before each and every one of us right now, and every day.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.
Ohio Capital Journal
June 26, 2026
June 26, 2026
A woman on a horse carries a flag past the U.S. Capitol building during a rodeo at the opening of The Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington D.C., U.S., June 25, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
America greets our 250th birthday not as the last, best hope of Earth, but under a noxious cloud of broken promises, betrayed ideals, hateful discourse, public corruption, and petulant, petty public leaders peddling horrendous lies without shame.
A great bulk of everyday people are sinking in a quicksand of endless struggles, feeling desperate, helpless, hopeless, while our feckless, egomaniacal, careless, reckless ruling class showers itself in gaudy, self-obsessed, look-at-me excess.
The most vile aspects of our national character and the worst of the American stereotypes crash around our public space chewing up people’s lives and hawking them into the spittoon of our collective historical shame:
Loud, loudly wrong, ignorant, excessive, might-makes-right, cruelty, armed-to-the-teeth, strutting and striding, bullying, and oh-so-tough.
Oh, so weak.
So very very weak.
So insecure, and so obviously so insecure.
Deluded like children playing at action heroes in their movie-minds, with no care or concept of the depth and breadth and complexity of actual human life in the very real world.
Except children have the capacity for growth and wonder and curiosity impossible for these calcified so-called adults running the country.
The callous selfishness of, Greed-is-good and I’m-gonna-get-mine-so-who-cares-about-anybody-else.
The cowardly myopia of, It-doesn’t-affect-me-so-what-do-I-care.
The chilling ignorance, lack of empathy, lack of humanity, lack of compassion, and lack of historical comprehension spewed in the eternal American sins of continued shameless racism and discrimination being enacted once again as a matter of brutal public policy.
And they think they’re being clever.
They especially think they’re being clever when the courts that they’ve vandalized, radicalized, and politicized officially excuse their atrocious behavior.
This time the pathetic fools declaim, Racism-is-actually-over-it’s-reverse-racism-that’s-the-problem, as they follow the timeless playbook.
And this debased ignorance becomes sanctified in the decisions of the nation’s highest court, to roll back civil rights, voting rights, human rights.
The sick, fetishized cruelty of, Good-I’m-glad-those-people-are-being-hurt-they-deserve-it.
The stone-cold pathological depravity of, Empathy-and-compassion-are-actually-bad-things.
America faces our anniversary as the world’s oldest democracy not as a celebration but a reckoning.
We must now take stock of our situation and decide whether we shall snuff out the remaining embers of our constitutional republic in sacrifice to the egomania and moral rot of the age.
A free people may vote their way out of freedom; that is a free choice, but it is also a robbery of future generations who would never then have any such choice.
This betrayal of future generations steals their birthright, the “apple of gold,” as Abraham Lincoln called it, the “political religion of our nation” enshrined in the ideals of the Declaration of Independence, and never yet fully realized, now being betrayed once again.
Consider the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence in full.
In full is key.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”
It begins with our fundamental equality as human beings — and therefore deserving of the same exact natural rights and dignity no matter who we are, all of us included, nobody left out, all of humanity.
The second sentence does not end at the individualistic “pursuit of happiness,” a common mistake.
It ends much later, not on the note of individualism in the introductory clause, but on the collectivism, collective interest, and supremacy of the people over the government found in its concluding lines.
Because all of this — all of our government, everything you see — is meant to be for the safety and happiness of the people, all the people. Full stop.
That’s so far from reality right now it’s a joke, and that’s where we’ve gone so catastrophically wrong.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The introduction about the individual under the laws of nature is an extension of Lockean thought based on Thomas Aquinas based on a synthesis of Augustine of Hippo and Aristotle:
This fundamental idea that we are all, by our nature, indeed born free in nature, in the full bloom of our individual righteousness of diversity, and we only bind ourselves together voluntarily in what Rousseau called the social contract.
The Declaration acknowledges the greater truth of that bond, and its basis in both our individual natural rights and our free choice of social contract, by proclaiming that all governmental power is derived “from the consent of the governed.”
This is the contract for our collective good, where we recognize that our own narrow self-interest must have limitations to protect the interests of others and our collective interests now and into the future — even and perhaps especially for our ideological opposites — because that’s how we ensure the protection of ourselves, and aspire to liberty and justice for all.
Moreover, “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends” — destructive of the people’s natural rights to life and liberty, meant to be secured in the bond of self-government — the people further reserve the right of supremacy over our government to do as we wish to effect our collective safety and happiness.
Put simply, all power is inherent in the people and politicians are nothing but public servants. Do not worship them, ever. They are your employees, nothing more. Hold them accountable, relentlessly.
And if politicians are only serving themselves, if they are only serving their own greed and lust for power and the moneyed elites who plunder and profiteer, and they sacrifice the public good at the altar of power and greed and ego, then they have betrayed the public trust and they are of no use to our self-government in their positions.
Past Americans spilled their blood for the rule of law now being ignored.
Past patriots gave their lives for the freedoms, liberty, and protections now being betrayed.
The birthright of future generations is at stake.
We can continue on in a hateful mess of chaos and destruction, or we can heal and build together.
That decision is before each and every one of us right now, and every day.
Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.
'Did the rapture happen?' Mockery ensues as Fox News broadcasts from empty Trump event
Nicole Charky-Chami
June 29, 2026
Nicole Charky-Chami
June 29, 2026
RAW STORY
A smaller replica of President Donald Trump’s proposed 250-foot ‘Triumphal Arch’ stands in the rain during The Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on June 28, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
The internet had a hilarious response to the low attendance at President Donald Trump's Great American State Fair on Monday.
Reporters broadcast live from the sparsely-attended fair commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, marked by bad weather that canceled rapper Vanilla Ice's performance, power outages melting ice cream, a Confederate flag display that ignited a firestorm and lackluster reviews from attendees.
Journalist Aaron Rupar commented on a Fox News reporter's live report from the celebration.
"Did the rapture happen overnight? Fox & Friends is broadcasting from a completely empty Trump state fair on the National Mall," Rupar wrote on X.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) described a similar scene.
"I went to the Great American State Fair this weekend…and it really was as empty as reported. **And where did the rest of our taxpayer dollars go?" Stansbury wrote on X.
Another D.C.-based reporter questioned the turnout, sharing an aerial video view from the Freedom 250 Ferris wheel.
"The Great American State Fair on Saturday at 2:15pm. What do you make of the crowd?" Jon Michael Raasch, The Daily Mail's White House correspondent, posted on X.
Strategist Christopher Webb responded to reporting from MS NOW at the location.
"The Great American State Fair was really just the remaining MAGA faithful refusing to admit it’s over," Webb wrote on X.
Lawyer David Lurie joked about the situation.
"Confused attendees thought they were supposed to invade the Capitol," Lurie wrote on Bluesky.
A smaller replica of President Donald Trump’s proposed 250-foot ‘Triumphal Arch’ stands in the rain during The Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on June 28, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
The internet had a hilarious response to the low attendance at President Donald Trump's Great American State Fair on Monday.
Reporters broadcast live from the sparsely-attended fair commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, marked by bad weather that canceled rapper Vanilla Ice's performance, power outages melting ice cream, a Confederate flag display that ignited a firestorm and lackluster reviews from attendees.
Journalist Aaron Rupar commented on a Fox News reporter's live report from the celebration.
"Did the rapture happen overnight? Fox & Friends is broadcasting from a completely empty Trump state fair on the National Mall," Rupar wrote on X.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) described a similar scene.
"I went to the Great American State Fair this weekend…and it really was as empty as reported. **And where did the rest of our taxpayer dollars go?" Stansbury wrote on X.
Another D.C.-based reporter questioned the turnout, sharing an aerial video view from the Freedom 250 Ferris wheel.
"The Great American State Fair on Saturday at 2:15pm. What do you make of the crowd?" Jon Michael Raasch, The Daily Mail's White House correspondent, posted on X.
Strategist Christopher Webb responded to reporting from MS NOW at the location.
"The Great American State Fair was really just the remaining MAGA faithful refusing to admit it’s over," Webb wrote on X.
Lawyer David Lurie joked about the situation.
"Confused attendees thought they were supposed to invade the Capitol," Lurie wrote on Bluesky.
'Ouch': MS NOW's Mika cringes at Fox News coverage of Trump's thinly attended festival
Travis Gettys
June 29, 2026
Travis Gettys
June 29, 2026
RAW STORY
Mika Brzezinski/MS NOW
President Donald Trump has boasted about the crowds flocking to the Great American State Fair, but photos show the semiquincentennial celebration has been thinly attended.
The 80-year-old president claimed last week that 45,000 people attended the fair's kickoff celebration, although independent reporting estimated a far smaller crowd, and MS NOW's Mika Brzezinski mocked the misleading coverage over the weekend on Fox News.
"President Trump is touting crowd size at the American State Fair, claiming at least 45,000 people attended his speech kicking off America's 250th anniversary festivities. In Washington, D.C.," Brzezinski said. "But reports from the ground tell a different story. NBC News puts the crowd closer to 1,000 people, writing, quote, 'based on,' there you go, 'estimates by our team on the ground, nowhere near. 45,000 people were present.' The Washington Post reports, quote, 'the crowd thinly covered an area about the length of the National Museum of American History, smaller than some summer outdoor movie screenings,' and the New Republic writes, quote, 'dozens of attendees Wednesday were seen flocking toward the exits in the middle of Trump's address,' which was meant to kick-start the two-week event."
"Despite the paltry crowd size, one news station insisted that there were more people attending that event than met the eye," she added.
Producers played a clip of Fox News hosts covering the event live insisting there were more attendees than what appeared to be dozens of people milling around behind them on the National Mall, with one broadcaster claiming "a wash of people" were present – presumably just out of frame.
"Oh my God," Brzezinski said, cringing. "Ouch."
Mika Brzezinski/MS NOW
President Donald Trump has boasted about the crowds flocking to the Great American State Fair, but photos show the semiquincentennial celebration has been thinly attended.
The 80-year-old president claimed last week that 45,000 people attended the fair's kickoff celebration, although independent reporting estimated a far smaller crowd, and MS NOW's Mika Brzezinski mocked the misleading coverage over the weekend on Fox News.
"President Trump is touting crowd size at the American State Fair, claiming at least 45,000 people attended his speech kicking off America's 250th anniversary festivities. In Washington, D.C.," Brzezinski said. "But reports from the ground tell a different story. NBC News puts the crowd closer to 1,000 people, writing, quote, 'based on,' there you go, 'estimates by our team on the ground, nowhere near. 45,000 people were present.' The Washington Post reports, quote, 'the crowd thinly covered an area about the length of the National Museum of American History, smaller than some summer outdoor movie screenings,' and the New Republic writes, quote, 'dozens of attendees Wednesday were seen flocking toward the exits in the middle of Trump's address,' which was meant to kick-start the two-week event."
"Despite the paltry crowd size, one news station insisted that there were more people attending that event than met the eye," she added.
Producers played a clip of Fox News hosts covering the event live insisting there were more attendees than what appeared to be dozens of people milling around behind them on the National Mall, with one broadcaster claiming "a wash of people" were present – presumably just out of frame.
"Oh my God," Brzezinski said, cringing. "Ouch."
Alexander Willis
June 29, 2026
RAW STORY
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on board Air Force One while flying from Joint Base Andrews to Chippewa Valley Regional Airport in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, U.S., June, 5, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
President Donald Trump took to social media Monday to lash out at former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden amid widespread mockery of his Great American State Fair, an event he insisted was “packed with happy people” and loved by all – despite ample evidence to the contrary.
“Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it?” Trump asked on his social media platform Truth Social. “Ask yourself this simple question, ‘DO YOU THINK THAT OBUMA OR SLEEPY JOE BIDEN COULD HAVE DONE IT?’ THE ANSWER IS NO!”
Organized by the Trump-linked group Freedom 250, the fair got off to a rough start last Thursday after most of the artists previously slated to perform at the event backed out after learning of its connections to Trump. The fair has also experienced power failures that melted perishable foods and stalled a Ferris wheel, and has been ridiculed over what appear to be near-empty fields and booths.
No comments:
Post a Comment