Dana Milbank: Trump’s Nutty State Fair Hijacked the Fourth of July. And My Pen.

I went through the magnetometer to enter the National Mall for President Trump’s Great American State Fair this week, putting my pens, notebook, phone and wallet on the table for inspection.

“You have to throw away these pens,” the guard said.

“Er, I’m a journalist,” I replied.

“Doesn’t matter. They are sharp and pointy. Could be weapons.”

She confiscated my pens, then let me in.

I’ve covered six presidents and reported from China and Russia, but that was the first time I was ordered to surrender a writing implement.

A guy behind me in line made sure his eyes were not deceiving him. “You’re a journalist and they made you give up your pens? That’s outlandish!” he said.

What’s particularly outlandish is that the Trump-created group banning pens is called “Freedom 250.”

It’s unclear who I would have attacked with my Bic ballpoint, anyway. The musicians who were slated to perform at the fair backed out because of the partisan tenor, and several states also declined to participate. There were no lines to get in when I arrived, and the crowd inside appeared to number in the high two figures.

Acres of green lawn were vacant, and three huge tents for concessions were empty. “You’re my first customer,” said the vendor when I bought a $5 bottle of ice water.

An event featuring remarks by Usha Vance drew a somewhat larger crowd — about 200, by my estimate. But on closer inspection, almost all of them were wearing “event staff” credentials on lanyards. Paid spectators?

“I hope you’ll keep the party going by exploring through everything that the Great American State Fair has to offer,” the vice president’s wife told her captive audience.

What it had to offer was a lot of fakery: fake neoclassical facades sloppily assembled from prefab parts and adorned with gold-painted eagles, plastic planters sprouting fake hydrangeas, and fake exhibits for states that declined to participate.

“Are you from Washington?” I asked the woman in the state of Washington booth.

“I’m not, but I was born in Oregon.”

I turned to the woman from the Oregon booth, which shared the space with Washington.

“I’m not from Oregon,” she confessed.

“They did not send representatives,” the stand-in Washington representative explained.

Same thing at the joint Maine and Connecticut booth.

“What’s your favorite part of Maine?” I asked the Maine rep.

“Since I’ve only been there half a day in my life I can’t really say,” she answered. “I’m a North Carolina girl.”

I can’t blame the states — and the crowds — for giving the whole thing a miss. The nation’s 250th birthday should be a moment of national unity. Instead, Trump made it all about himself.

Trump shoved aside the bipartisan, congressionally created America250 committee and instead funneled taxpayer money and corporate largesse to his own Freedom 250. That group turned the nation’s semiquincentennial into another vehicle for national division and forced Trump worship, starting with the UFC cage fight at the White House on his birthday and ending on the Fourth with “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.”

The huge crowd at Trump’s “Great American State Fair” on the National Mall. Dana Milbank/NOTUS

Happily, I’ll be 2,300 miles away in Anacortes, Washington, on Saturday, about as far as one can get from D.C. in the Lower 48. But I wanted to report on the fair — and for that I would first need to replace my confiscated pens.

My salvation came from the Koch-family-funded Americans for Prosperity booth, where they were asking visitors to sign a reproduction of the Declaration of Independence with quill pens. I asked if I might have one of their quills.

“Only if you sign my Declaration,” a woman replied.

“Deal!” I said.

And so, armed with my feather, I set out to record not a celebration of our nation but a celebration of Trump’s MAGA movement.

Here were U.S. government agency exhibits highlighting Christian nationalists, far-right conspiracy theorists and Glenn Beck. There were right-wing groups with merchandise and handouts attacking “the left,” “socialists,” trans people and abortions while celebrating guns and the Rapture, and calling COVID-19 a “phantom virus.”

Installations promoted Fox News and “The Matt Gaetz Show” on One America News. But mostly they promoted Trump. There was a booth from Truth Social, multiple exhibits touting Trump savings accounts, a National Endowment for the Humanities exhibit soliciting donations for Trump’s “National Garden of American Heroes.”

On display across the National Mall were all the attributes that have come to characterize Trump’s second term.

The authoritarian: double rows of 8-foot fences, other concrete and metal barricades, armed National Guard troops with their Humvees, other armed men in tactical gear proclaiming “U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force” or “SHERIFF,” and private security confiscating not just pens but coffee cups and water bottles.

The chaos: The early days of the fair have resembled another algal Reflecting Pool, with power outages closing the Ferris wheel and melting the ice cream, a Confederate flag making an appearance and the arrest of a MAGA influencer dressed as Uncle Sam for lewd acts.

And, of course, the partisan.

In the “Faith and Family” tent, the Association of Mature American Citizens, some sort of right-wing AARP, handed out rubber jar openers proclaiming “THE LEFT NEEDS TO GET A GRIP,” magazines featuring a fist-pumping Trump on the cover, and a flyer denouncing “extreme gender ideology forced on children.”

Across the way, Moms for America displayed a children’s book by Neil Gorsuch and one for toddlers, “My First Board Book: The Second Amendment,” featuring kids playing with toy rifles. Revival Ministries International, at its booth, offered books detailing some of the conspiracy theories of its leader, who has claimed that people in Hollywood drink the blood of children. Hillsdale College, Museum of the Bible and Focus on the Family rounded out the conservative Christian offering.

A board book for well-armed children at the Moms for America booth. Dana Milbank/NOTUS

Elsewhere at the fair, an exhibit offered thrice-daily training in “how to lead people to Jesus” and a tent promising “24/7 Public Worship of Jesus” giving away Bibles. On a tablet, visitors typed in their own “thankfulness prayers,” including No. 102: “Our Nation once again under God — Hallelujah! No longer under the evil ones.”

Cabinet agencies had booths, with flags outside to identify them. “WAR,” proclaimed the flag outside the Defense Department. An exhibit at the booth of the Department of Education, which Trump has sought to abolish, touted five organizations: the “American Journey Experience,” founded by Glenn Beck; Wallbuilders, a group that promotes Christian nationalism; Patriot Academy, which combines “biblical citizenship” with militia-style firearms training; PragerU, which downplays slavery as part of its Trump-friendly curriculum; and American Minute, run by a man who spins anti-Muslim conspiracy theories.

A “Freedom Truck” offered visitors a version of history, developed by PragerU and Hillsdale, cleansed of slavery and infused with Christianity. A Christian nonprofit, Never Surrender USA, offered a strength-training station. Another exhibit featured a group founded by Scott Rasmussen, one of Trump’s favorite pollsters. The Fox News booth offered a chance to sit on the “Fox & Friends” “curvy couch.” Even the commission for the “Official Freedom 250 Artwork” — a painting of the Declaration with a pistol on it — went to an artist who recently painted work titled “America First.”

In addition to whatever taxpayer funds Freedom 250 pumped into this 16-day MAGA party, the empty fairgrounds were full of logos of those seeking favor from Trump: Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, GE Aerospace, Boeing, Oracle, Micron, Chevron, ExxonMobil, SAP, UnitedHealth Group — and on, and on.

China-developed TikTok pretends to be American at the state fair. Dana Milbank/NOTUS

At the center of the “America Innovates” pavilion, a large exhibit by SpaceX, run by Trump ally Elon Musk, featured model rockets and promoted Starlink wifi. The NASA exhibit, in a corner, looked like an afterthought by comparison.

But my favorite was the “America Innovates” exhibit for TikTok, the Chinese-developed social media company now in a joint venture with American owners. It was full of American flags and “Shop American” messages and “#AmericaCreates” hashtags.

Missing was any mention that roughly half its profits reportedly go to China and another chunk to the United Arab Emirates.

What better way to celebrate our nation than with Chinese technology in the “America Innovates” tent?

I scribbled a note with my quill pen and headed for the exit.

Dana Milbank is a NOTUS Perspectives columnist.