Trump’s Pathetic State Fair Reduced to Livestreaming an Empty Field
The Great American State Fair seemed to attract dozens of attendees ahead of America’s 250-year Fourth of July celebration. Now, it’s attracting no one.
Meghan McCain, the daughter of late Arizona Senator John McCain, hosted the “Race 2 Win” quiz show at the sprawling semiquincentennial celebration Tuesday. But a picture of the game stage, as shared by McCain herself, illustrated that nobody had shown up to her event. Instead, McCain’s voice rang out to an empty field, speckled by just a few lonely chairs.
“So cool to host @2waytvapp new game show ‘Race 2 Win’ at The Great American State Fair today!” she wrote on X.
But even McCain couldn’t be bothered to show up to the event. The pundit’s image was broadcast onto large screens on the enormous stage while she remained in an assumedly climate-controlled room, speaking with participants over Zoom.
The event technicians overseeing the show couldn’t be bothered by its technicalities, either. Instead, they streamed McCain’s show as-is on the two vertical monitors that bordered the stage, mangling the image while cutting off the text of a trivia question about the building materials used to construct the Capitol dome due to the altered aspect ratio.
Practically every component of Donald Trump’s wildly expensive plan to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary has turned out to be a dud. The $15 million renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool failed to rid the iconic monument of algae; a multi-week lineup of music acts had to be cancelled after practically every artist pulled themselves from the program; and a fleet of buses carrying a contemporary retelling of American history have failed to make a splash in their journey across the country.
The Great American State Fair was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Trump administration’s America 250 celebration, yet even it is more of a potemkin village than a sincere homage.
The booths, which offered space for each state to represent its heritage and culture (pet a replica of a bison at the North Dakota pavilion, or walk away with a bag of chips from Maine), were ideologically pitted against the seismic presence of the federal government and Trump’s authoritarian expansion (banners featuring his grim face flank the event, while a small-scale replica of his proposed “Triumphal Arc” sits center stage).
The fair also suffered from power outages and dangerous technical failures that included large stage equipment falling behind dancers during rehearsal. But the extreme heat that consumed Washington over the weekend seemed to be the final blow to the expansive celebration: even the thin crowds that did appear to watch the world record-shattering fireworks display were forced to leave the area for several hours due to an unprecedented weather advisory.
