In his second term, Donald Trump scored one of the biggest gimmes in presidential history: His term included America’s 250th birthday. How easy it should have been to unite the nation—at least a little, at least briefly—under a common star-spangled banner.

Instead, he has failed to find popular support for the key events in his semiquincentennial project.

Only 51 percent of voters report being “extremely” or “very” excited for America’s 250th anniversary, according to a poll conducted for Fox News. That’s about the same as the share of Americans who celebrated the Fourth of July last year, per YouGov data.

Chart by Andrew Mangan/Source: Fox News/Beacon Research/Shaw and Company ResearchCreated with Datawrapper

Excitement isn’t matching the occasion, and Trump is the most to blame. He doesn’t know how to throw a party.

Take the UFC fight. On June 14, on a stage on the White House’s South Lawn, men bloodied each other across seven bouts of mixed martial arts. Trump watched the entire show, despite his penchant for sleeping through or dipping out early from other sporting events.

By and large, though, Americans didn’t care. Only 26 percent told YouGov they were interested in watching the fight. Meanwhile, 67% weren’t interested, including 53 percent who were “not at all interested.” As much as they did care, a majority of Americans (51%) disapproved of the fight being held at all, another YouGov survey found. Only 27 percernt approved.

An average of 7 million Americans streamed the fight. Though that may be a live-event record for Paramount+, it’s only about 18 percent of the live domestic viewership of Netflix’s 2024 boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul.

Such paltry numbers shouldn’t surprise anyone. MMA, which the late Arizona Sen. John McCain once derided as “human cockfighting,” is tied with wrestling for the least-popular sport in America, according to a 2025 YouGov poll. The UFC itself has the second-worst favorability of any major U.S. sports organization, after the WWE. And YouGov finds that only 38 percent of Americans know who the sport’s most well-known contemporary personality is (Anderson Silva). Compare that with tennis, which isn’t much more popular in the U.S., and yet 81 percent of Americans know of Venus Williams.

Chart by Andrew Mangan/Source YouGovCreated with Datawrapper

Larry David, the famed TV writer and co-creator of “Seinfeld,” summed up many Americans’ take on the fight, telling Variety on Tuesday, “It was embarrassing. I was embarrassed to be an American.”

And yet the fight may not have been Trump’s biggest misstep on the march toward July 4. After all, at least “UFC Freedom 250” happened. The same isn’t true for the planned concert from Freedom 250—which is the White House initiative working independently of the bipartisan America 250 effort. Trump was forced to cancel that show after nearly all the acts dropped out.

But even if that concert had gone on as planned, it would have been a dud. Roughly 60 percent of Americans hadn’t heard of three of the nine announced acts, per YouGov. Only two—one-hit wonder Vanilla Ice and 1980s funk group Commodores—were known by at least two-thirds of Americans.

Chart by Andrew Mangan/ Source YouGovCreated with Datawrapper

In August, the “Freedom 250 Grand Prix” is scheduled to take place on the streets of Washington, but its viewership may prove less impressive than that of the UFC fight. May’s Indianapolis 500, IndyCar’s centerpiece race, was watched by an average of just 6.6 million viewers. If the D.C. race manages to top that, it may be due to pure gawk factor alone. Our nation’s capital, now the trashy site of car racing and cage fights.

Americans just aren’t hungry for what Trump is slinging. The vast majority (71 percent) say small local events feel like a more authentic way to commemorate the occasion, while just 30 percent prefer large national events, according to a recent Elon University poll.

Every vibe is off. His “Great American State Fair,” launched on Thursday, featured empty chairs in place of some state exhibits.

Instead of enjoyable schlock like the nation gobbled up in 1976, we’re faced with ephemera like the single ugliest shirt in human history, some dead ducks at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and a proposed $250 bill with Trump’s mug on it. Though the creation of that currently illegal banknote would require an act of Congress, the president’s top lackeys are pushing for it. Of course, Americans hate the idea: Only 16 percet favor creating the Trump-emblazoned bill, while 70 percent oppose it, per a recent YouGov/Economist poll.

But the $250 bill, as with the events, signifies the core problem: Not only are his marquee events unpopular, they are less a celebration of America than a celebration of himself. After all, in lieu of a big concert this past Wednesday, Trump hosted a Trump rally.

It’s no wonder only 37 percent of Americans told Elon University that America’s 250th anniversary is likely to “bring people together.”

More than anyone in recent history, Trump has degraded America’s view of itself. Between 2001 and 2016, the share of Americans who said they were “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American didn’t dip below 81 percent, according to Gallup. But from 2017 to 2020—spanning Trump’s first term—each year set a new low, slipping to 63 percent in the last full year of that term.

After Trump left the White House, American pride rebounded slightly, hovering in the mid to high 60s. But last year, in the first year of his second term, it plunged to yet another new low: 58 percent.

Chart by Andrew Mangan/Source GallupCreated with Datawrapper

While 65 percent of baby boomers see being American as key to their identity, 58 percent of both millennials and Gen Zers don’t think about that piece of their identity much, a recent Ipsos poll finds. Maybe younger Americans’ sense of national identity will strengthen as they age, but it just as easily may not—especially if these greenest members of our workforce struggle to attain the “American dream.” Only 34 percent of Americans see that dream as currently attainable, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. A majority (51 percent) say that dream was once true but is no longer.

And the less that people approve of how Trump is handling his job as president, the less they are interested in celebrating the big 250. A new Marquette University Law School poll finds that while 88 percent of Americans who “strongly approve” of Trump are interested in the occasion, that is shared by only 39 percent of those who “strongly disapprove” of him.

The country is divided and hurting, and the unpopular guy who helped to divide it and hurt it is throwing a big party headlined by events most of the nation has little interest in.

Woo-hoo?

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos