A Fourth of July in Kamala Harris’ USA
Since Donald Trump has turned our nation’s 250th anniversary into a celebration of himself — complete with grift — let’s imagine a Fourth of July that might have been.
In this alternate history, the 2024 presidential election ended differently. Vice President Kamala Harris was elected the 47th president of the United States. Two years later, the nation is still marked by political polarization and economic uncertainty. On July 4, 2026, America celebrates 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Perhaps the most striking feature of this alternate 2026 is tonal. The central theme of Harris’ speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention was “Take Back the Flag,” a message she had touted since her days serving as a senator from California. Since her closing argument during that campaign emphasized “turning the page” on division, it’s safe to say that unity in the name of patriotism would be her paramount goal during the festivities.
The morning begins in Philadelphia, where President Harris delivers remarks from Independence Hall. Behind her hangs the same flag that has witnessed countless presidential speeches. Rather than framing the anniversary as a victory for one political party, she describes it as a milestone belonging to every American.
Harris’ address at the site of the Declaration’s signing does not shy away from America’s contradictions. She references slavery alongside liberty, exclusion alongside opportunity and struggle alongside progress.
Harris’ address at the site of the Declaration’s signing does not shy away from America’s contradictions. She references slavery alongside liberty, exclusion alongside opportunity and struggle alongside progress. Instead of presenting history as either flawless or irredeemably broken, she portrays the United States as an ongoing democratic experiment whose greatest strength lies in its ability to reform itself. Harris ends her Philadelphia pilgrimage with a quiet, deliberate visit to the President’s House, where George Washington and John Adams lived during the bulk of their presidencies, and where the structural slavery exhibit still stands as a testament to the nation’s complex foundations.
Back in Washington, D.C., the atmosphere feels less like a presidential production and more like a national family reunion. Instead of the protective fortification of concrete barriers and razor wire, the National Mall is marked by a sprawling, deliberate openness. The air carries the distinct rhythm of go-go music — a genre founded in D.C. — drifting from a stage near the Smithsonian and mingling with the scent of street food from vendors who have set up shop along paths not too heavily policed. The official semiquincentennial parade down Constitution Avenue is led not by military armor but by marching bands from the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Gospel choirs, country musicians, jazz ensembles, mariachi groups, Indigenous performers, military bands and local community orchestras share stages throughout the city.
The diversity — of people, of music, of food — is intentional and natural: In Kamala Harris’s America, patriotism is defined less by isolated executive spectacle than by systemic civic participation. This broader, decentralized spirit manifests visibly across the country. Libraries host readings of the Declaration of Independence. Museums waive admission fees. National parks feature volunteer service projects. Small towns hold July Fourth breakfasts for first responders and military families, city neighborhoods stage local history walks and the Smithsonian offers nationwide digital exhibits that are accessible all year to nearly every public school classroom. Instead of treating history as a static, unyielding marble monument to be worshiped blindly, the nation is encouraged to treat it as a shared inheritance — one that has been unevenly distributed across generations, but that remains collectively owned.
The Harris administration would treat the Fourth as a civic report card: Here is what the country has done, here is who has benefited and here is what still needs fixing before the 300th. In that world, fireworks might be accompanied by announcements about climate resilience projects or summer meal expansions for children.
The reality of July 4, 2026, under the all-too-real administration of Donald Trump, stands in brutal, absolute opposition to the inclusive civic vision that might have been. Rather than allowing America250, the nonpartisan organization Congress established in 2016 to lead a unifying national commemoration, the Trump White House staged a hostile takeover of the anniversary. When the leadership of the America250 Foundation resisted demands to transform the semiquincentennial into a hyper-partisan, campaign-style spectacle centered entirely on the president, the administration simply bypassed them altogether. They constructed Freedom 250 LLC, a shadow corporate entity embedded within the National Park Foundation, effectively hijacking the national celebration to serve a singular man’s vanity, political ideology and private financial interests.
Start your day with essential news from Salon.
Sign up for our free morning newsletter, Crash Course.
According to an explosive interim congressional report released by Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee’s oversight subcommittee, this shadow organization allegedly converted a historic public milestone into a sprawling web of corruption and pay-to-play schemes. Fundraisers for Freedom 250 systematically diverted resources away from the official, bipartisan commission. The report documents instances that may constitute federal wire fraud, revealing that unsuspecting private donors who intended to support the congressionally chartered foundation were apparently surreptitiously handed Freedom 250’s bank account and routing numbers instead. Presidential access was openly commercialized, the report alleges, with sponsorship packages starting at $500,000 and climbing above $10 million, offering wealthy individuals and corporations facing impending federal regulations an “historic photo opportunity” with Trump on the South Lawn of the White House.
Where Harris’s alternate anniversary seeks to engage with the full, complicated tapestry of the American narrative, Trump’s reality imposes a falsified, heavily sanitized history designed to suit a distorted vision of the past. In a move that lays bare the administration’s contempt for democratic norms, an organization previously responsible for planning events surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection was officially contracted to help orchestrate the nation’s 250th birthday celebrations. Christian nationalist ideology has been aggressively injected into official government events, systematically eroding the constitutional wall of church-state separation. Under loose and unchecked logo licensing, Freedom 250 has allowed deeply racist merchandise to be branded and sold under the official government banner. According to the interim congressional report, the private, personal information of ordinary Americans has been actively harvested; thousands of citizens who signed up through registration systems for free public events, such as a FIFA World Cup Fan Zone on the National Mall, apparently had their data unknowingly fed directly into a Republican political campaign apparatus.
Ultimately, what a different outcome might genuinely have changed is more than tonal.
The physical reality of our capital city today reflects Trump’s obsession with gaudy, commercialized authoritarianism. The White House is dominated by fake gold trinkets. The president’s social media feed pumps out deranged artificial intelligence-generated promotional videos. Trump parades his family around in a jet once owned by a foreign country that cost taxpayers $400 million to retrofit. Meanwhile, his ongoing plans to bulldoze his way through destroying the historical and aesthetic integrity of Washington are projected to siphon more than $1 billion of American taxpayer money.
Whether the country’s 250th birthday feels like a rare civic milestone to celebrate or not depends, for many, on acknowledging the harsh truths of our era. While Kamala Harris was not elected in 2024, I can take the smallest comfort in knowing that, back in the reality of Donald Trump’s America, his national boondoggle on the Mall has failed miserably.
Read more
about America at 250