Thursday was opening day for the Great American State Fair, the latest round of summer patriotism planned by President Trump’s Freedom 250 semiquincentennial task force. In preparation, the National Mall has spent weeks cluttered with half-built plywood structures and has been largely cordoned off to the public. Road closures and bus detours will choke downtown through mid-July. The fanfare conflicts with the usual dates of the locally beloved Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which has moved its iconic marketplace to the Arts and Industries Building instead. Surely, I thought, this thing ought to be worth the fuss.

Gates opened at 10 AM, and I feared my noon arrival would relegate me to the back of a winding security line. Getting to the bag check wasn’t easy: Tall fences flank the entire Mall, and I walked well over a mile from Federal Triangle station just to reach an entry point. But when I finally make it, already sweating through my shirt, there is no line to speak of. (Later, a vendor tells me that nobody really trickled in for at least an hour after the start time.) A guard glances into my purse, ushers me through the metal detector, and off I go.

Of all the bombastic Freedom 250 programming—a UFC fight that chewed up all the grass on the Ellipse, an Indy car race slated for August that’s expected to mangle downtown traffic for days—the state fair seemed like it was going to be the most benign. Organizers promised exhibits from all 56 states and territories, a quaint showcase of Americana that wouldn’t involve a gas leak or LED octagon lights blinding pilots en route to National Airport. And honestly, who doesn’t love to eat a funnel cake and take the Ferris wheel for a spin?

But the tender sheen over the event quickly dissipated last month when a hodgepodge of musicians booked for live performances backed out at the last minute, saying they were not informed that the Freedom 250 festivities would have a political tilt. Several states also announced they would not participate. In the eleventh hour, the president declared he would headline the fair himself: He was introduced at a rally Wednesday night by transportation secretary Sean Duffy, who started by eschewing the “libtards that canceled on us.” When Trump finally took the stage, he lauded America as the “hottest” nation in the world. “Nobody’s laughing at us anymore,” said the man filling in for Milli Vanilli.

https://washingtonian.com/2026/06/26/i-went-to-trumps-great-american-state-fair-it-was-bleaker-than-i-expected/