Trump wants to sabotage his own party to send a message about himself: biographer

“Hardly the grounds for a grand celebration. And yet, the 250th comes at the perfect time for the Left,” Kaye wrote.

“Indeed, rather than dismiss or scorn the occasion as we may be wont to, we progressives, populists, and democratic socialists should step up and embrace it. For are we not also finally seeing the beginnings of a real democratic surge – a surge that might actually lead to taking back the Democratic Party from the neoliberals and billionaires?”

Kaye called on Americans to remember they are "heirs to the promise and project of the American Revolution," invoking Thomas Paine's declaration that "we have it in our power to begin the world over again."

Kaye pointed to past national crises – the Civil War and the Great Depression – as models for how Americans previously responded to authoritarian threats, writing that each generation made the country "radically freer, more equal, and more democratic than ever before."

“Reminding ourselves of all of that, and sensing the democratic possibilities that are emerging, let us toast the 250th with words from the man who first turned us into radicals,” Kaye wrote.

“Angered by misrepresentations of the American Revolution in a history published in 1782 by the famed French writer, Abbe Raynal, Paine replied, ‘It is yet too soon to write the history of the Revolution.’”

Austin conceded that attempts to cool down the fair’s state exhibits for attendees had shown only “mixed success.”

“They do have fans going,” Austin said. “Some of them are quite cool; I've heard Florida and Georgia are doing pretty well. A couple of the booths here and there have actually had to shut down because they said it was just too hot.”

A local D.C. journalist, Eric Flack of WUSA9, recently did a deep dive into the fair’s state exhibits, learning that they ranged wildly in quality, with some amounting to a barren cubicle where organizers “basically just put up some chairs.”

Some states didn’t participate in the state exhibits at all, such as with North Carolina, which instead was organized by a company that built tractor trailers for the Trump-linked group Freedom 250. The North Carolina state exhibit featured a race car and what appeared to be a cardboard box of North Carolina potatoes resting on the ground.

Writing on her Substack, Justice argued that Smith's silence was notable given Patel's own history in that same investigation. Patel was subpoenaed before the grand jury investigating Trump's handling of classified materials and invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent rather than answer questions. Prosecutors granted him immunity, and a judge issued a sealed order compelling his testimony – an order that remains under seal.

Justice noted that Patel had spent months publicly insisting he witnessed Trump declassify the documents before leaving office, a claim that became part of Trump's defense, before the same man was later put in charge of the FBI.

“I don’t think people are truly looking at how extraordinary that is,” Justice wrote.

“What [Patel] said behind those closed doors is locked inside the report Judge Aileen Cannon sealed under a permanent order, and two watchdog groups, American Oversight and the Knight First Amendment Institute, are still in court fighting to get released.”

The questions Patel’s secret testimony raised, Justice argued, were endless.

“So what did Kash Patel tell prosecutors once immunity forced him to talk?” Justice wrote. “What did Smith’s team conclude about his testimony? Why did the man who now runs the FBI need immunity before he would answer questions in the investigation into the president who gave him the job?”