{"id":2276,"date":"2026-06-26T07:07:44","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:07:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2276"},"modified":"2026-06-26T07:07:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T07:07:44","slug":"trumps-trashy-250-speech-gets-demolished-by-columnist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2276","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s ‘trashy’ 250 speech gets demolished by columnist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s Wednesday night speech to commemorate America\u2019s 250th anniversary was garbage, according to a former U.S. Naval War College professor.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s \u2018brittle\u2019 attempt at art propaganda is crumbling: opinion<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it was trashy,\u201d Tom Nichols, retired professor from the U.S. Naval War College, told The Bulwark\u2019 podcaster Tim Miller on Thursday. \u201cThe whole business was trashy. And I know that sounds \u2014 oh, that’s snooty and elitist. But no, it was just trashy. And his speech was small. That’s a thing. That’s what I wrote about last night. He took this thing that could have been grandiose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nichols then quoted George Washington, America\u2019s first president, who in his last will and testament started by describing himself as a citizen first and a president second.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor him, that was the most important thing to be \u2014 to be a citizen, and he understood that we were all sharers in this great adventure, this great experiment, and Trump just doesn’t understand any of that,\u201d Nichols said. \u201cHe made it all about me, me, me.\u201d Quoting Trump\u2019s bragging about ending taxes on tips, declaring war against Iran and renovating the Reflecting Pool, Nichols added that \u201cthe few times that Trump tried to be elevated, or tried to be presidential, he said things like \u2014 the one that jumped out at me \u2014 \u2018from the storied alleys of Boston to the streets of Philadelphia.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, first of all, anybody who’s lived in Boston knows there’s no such thing as these storied alleys of Boston,\u201d Nichols said. \u201cThey have some stories, and we won’t tell them. But “to the streets of Philadelphia” \u2014 I’m sorry, wasn’t that a Bruce Springsteen song about a movie about a guy with AIDS? I mean, it just went on and on \u2014 skyscrapers and railroads and Normandy and Saratoga. But then he would go right back to the really petty, small, you know, \u2018look at me, look what I did.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Trump aides know he\u2019s nuts \u2014 but don\u2019t expect a fix<\/a><\/p>\n

He concluded, \u201cAnd I’ll finish with one serious comment, which is that it shows that Trump and his people don’t understand the difference between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism is love of one’s country for itself \u2014 for what it is, for its eternal characteristics. Nationalism is \u2018my tribe is better than all other tribes.\u2019 And that’s the only way Trump can conceive of this. He kept saying we’re better than everybody else, we’re the hottest, we’re the biggest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nichols is not the only one to draw attention to a \u201ctrashy\u201d quality in Trump\u2019s celebration of America\u2019s 250th birthday. His Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy aroused controversy when he described Trump\u2019s critics and the artists who cancelled appearing at his event as \u201clibtards,\u201d even though his daughter with Downs Syndrome was present. According to CNN senior political reporter Aaron Blake, \u201cIn one sentence, Duffy both complains about the musical acts who canceled and completely legitimizes their stated reason for doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n

More controversially, during a UFC event on the White House lawn intended to commemorate both America\u2019s birthday and Trump\u2019s own birthday, fighter Josh Hokit told pro-Trump podcaster Joe Rogan that \u201cMichelle Obama is a man! Am I right, America?\u201d<\/p>\n

Similarly National Park Service employees have balked at being required to wear Freedom 250 pins under the threat of \u201cprofessional reprimands,\u201d with one employee telling Mother Jones \u201cwhen I asked if I would receive any disciplinary action if I chose not to wear the pin, I was told, \u2018Yes.\u2019 I chose not to continue the conversation after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The secret report in the White House drawer that could change everything in November<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s Wednesday night speech to commemorate America\u2019s 250th anniversary was garbage, according to a former U.S. Naval War College professor.\u201cI mean, it was trashy,\u201d Tom Nichols, retired professor from the U.S. Naval War College, told The Bulwark\u2019 podcaster Tim Miller on Thursday. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s 'trashy' 250 speech gets demolished by columnist - Next Address America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextaddressamerica.com\/?p=2276\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s 'trashy' 250 speech gets demolished by columnist - 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