The US is turning 250 - and Trump is making it all about him

Clare Corbould Associate Professor of History, Deakin University

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It’s the Fourth of July and Donald Trump is making the most of the 250th anniversary of American independence. He has all but declared himself Patriot-in-Chief.

He’s putting his face on commemorative $250 bills and passports. A giant structure on the White House’s South Lawn, built for a pay-per-view UFC bout on Trump’s 80th birthday, was nicknamed the Arc de Trump. Perhaps Trump would have put his name on that, too, but as it was being built a court ordered his name be removed from another federal building.

Trump is not the first president to lean into an exaggerated patriotism at a time of crisis, attempting to direct or reorient Americans’ sense of national purpose.

But the vanity of Trump’s actions signals something perhaps unique or at least singularly intense, as he attempts to fuse patriotism with personal loyalty so that love of country is the same as loving him.

Other presidents have used patriotism to narrate the character of the nation, or to emphasise some change they felt necessary.

Patriotism as service and the presidency as stewardship

For George Washington, patriotism took the form of stepping down from the role as the nation’s first president.

In doing so, he showed the new republic was serious about its claim that it would be governed by popular sovereignty rather than by an inherited monarchy.