On a day devoted to unity and celebration, President Donald Trump promised to “safeguard our values” from internal enemies (leftists, looters, agitators, he said) in a July 4 speech filled with all the complaints and combativeness of its political manifestations.
Trump saw paratroopers float to the ground in a tribute to the United States, greeted his audience of frontline medical workers and other centrals in his response to the coronavirus pandemic, and opened up to those who “slandered” him and they disrespected the country’s past.
“We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and the people who, in many cases, have absolutely no idea what they are doing,” he said. “We will never allow an angry crowd to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children.”
“And we will defend, protect and preserve (the) American way of life, which began in 1492 when Columbus discovered America.”
He did not mention the dead of the pandemic. Nearly 130,000 are known to have died from COVID-19 in the U.S.
Even when officials across the country pleaded with Americans to curb their enthusiasm for the large July 4 crowds, Trump drew the masses in with a “special night” of tribute and fireworks with new coronavirus infections in the United States.
But the crowds roaming the National Mall for the night air show and fireworks were surprisingly thinner than last year’s gathering for the Mall celebration.
Many of those who showed up wore masks, unlike those who sat together for Trump’s South Lawn event, and the distancing was easy to do for those scattered across the vast space.
Trump did not hesitate to use the country’s birthday as an occasion to attack segments of the country that do not support him.
Continuing on a theme that struck a day earlier in the context of the Mount Rushmore monuments, it haunted those who downed statues or think that some of them, particularly those of Confederate figures, should be removed. Support has been growing among Republicans to remove Confederate monuments.
“Our past is not a burden to discard,” Trump said.
Outside of the event but as close as possible, Pat Lee from Upper Dublin, Pennsylvania, met two friends, one of them a nurse from Fredericksburg, Virginia, and none wearing a mask.
“POTUS said it would go away,” Lee said of the pandemic, using an acronym for President of the United States. “The masks, I think, are like a hoax.” But she said she carried one inside the Trump International Hotel, where she stayed.
At the World War II Memorial, the National Park Service delivered packages of five white cloth masks to everyone who wanted them. People were not required to use them.
Another nurse, Zippy Watt from Riverside, California, came to watch the air show and fireworks with her husband and two daughters, one of whom lives in Washington. They wore matching American flag face masks, even when they were sitting together on a park bench.
“We chose to wear a mask to protect ourselves and others,” said Watt. She said her family was divided by Trump, but that “she is more in favor of Trump. Being from Southern California I see socialist tendencies. I am tired of paying taxes so that others can stay at home.”
Pat Lee made the trip from North Philly after watching last year’s Mall celebration on television.
She said the protests over racial injustice that unfolded near her were so threatening that people in her suburban neighborhood took turns staying up all night and those without weapons placed bats and shovels in their garages. Her Pennsylvania friend, who did not want to be identified, said she spent more than three hours in line to buy a gun.
“I want people to stop calling us racists,” said Lee. “We are not racist. Just because you love your country, the people of your country, does not make you racist.”
Trump’s guests in South Lawn were doctors, nurses, law enforcement officers and military members, as well as administration officials, said Judd Deere, White House deputy press secretary. He said the event was a tribute to the “tremendous courage and spirit” of frontline workers and the public in the pandemic.
In many parts of the country, authorities discouraged mass vacation gatherings after days of seeing COVID-19 cases grow at a rate not experienced even during the deadliest phase of the pandemic in the spring.
In New York, once it was the epicenter, people were urged to avoid the crowds, and Nathan’s famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest took place in an undisclosed location with no spectators on hand, before the spectacular televised fireworks at night over the Empire State Building.
In Philadelphia, the descendants in masks and gloves of the signers of the Declaration of Independence participated in a virtual tapping of the famous Liberty Bell in the Independence Mall and people were asked to join from afar by clinking glasses, playing pots or ringing bells.
However, Trump continued to yearn for large crowds when it came to his events.
It opened the holiday weekend by traveling to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota for a fireworks show on Friday night near the mountain carvings of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. In stark words, he accused protesters who have lobbied for racial justice of participating in a “ruthless campaign to end our history.”
Even as he moved on with the celebrations, the coronavirus shadow loomed closer to him. Kimberly Guilfoyle, one of the main fundraisers for the president and girlfriend of her oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., tested positive for the virus, the Trump campaign said Friday night. Guilfoyle tweeted Saturday that he expected “a speedy recovery.”
In a presidential message Saturday morning on the 244th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, Trump acknowledged that “in recent months, the American spirit has certainly been tested by many challenges.”
His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, said in a statement that the United States “never lived up to its founding principle that” all men are created equal, “but today” we have the opportunity to pluck the roots of systemic racism from this country. . ″
Trump’s endorsement of the big gatherings on the National Mall and in Mount Rushmore came when many communities decided to scrap fireworks, parades, and other Christmas traditions in hopes of avoiding even more waves of infection.
Confirmed cases were on the rise in 40 states, and the United States set another record on Friday with 52,300 recently reported infections, according to the count maintained by Johns Hopkins University.
Trump did not dwell on the pandemic in his comments Saturday night. Instead, he declared that “our country is in excellent shape.”
Trump has been eager to see the nation return to normal, and he’s been willing to push the limit beyond what many big city states and mayors are willing to go.
For Trump and the country, it was another party clouded by a pandemic that the United States could not control.
In late March, just over a week after he gave in to the need to close much of the country, Trump spoke of the reopening with “full” churches by Easter Sunday. He gave in to that impulse when his medical advisers warned that he was too ambitious. He then spent much of his Memorial Day weekend enraged by criticism that he said ignored the cases of falls and deaths at the time.
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