somehow, Donny’s shit-show on the National Mall gets even worse

what a fucking nightmare

I’ve had a lot of shitty jobs in my life, but I never had to go on live television and pretend that some incompetent fascist’s fucked-up pity party was a roaring success.

Peter Doocy: “people are still coming out.”

oh, Fox News, how sad. how pathetic. Dear Leader has once again shit the bed royally — and these yammering potato-heads are obligated to go out there and make happy-talk about it.

what people, Peter, are ‘still coming out’? I need to ask, because I’m staring at that clip, and I see maybe a half dozen people loitering near the booths, and no one at all on the lawn. that’s fewer people than were on the Mall the previous day. in fact, that’s fewer people than would normally be on the Mall on any other random summer Sunday in Washington DC.

think about it. Donny has ruined just going to the park on a Sunday and hanging out. he’s that toxic.

Donny couldn’t even get his own supposedly-loyal cultists to show up. imagine that. isn’t MAGA supposed to do everything Dear Leader commands them to? what happened? maybe he should have told them he was going to hang Mike Pence. apparently, they eat that shit right up.

maybe instead of a ferris wheel, there should have been a ride where you get to bludgeon a cop with a flagpole. that seems to be more MAGA’s speed.

what does it say about MAGA, that they’d rather tear shit down than celebrate building something?

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Donny really fucked up the chance to do something spectacular this year. a country’s 250th birthday is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

imagine what a competent president could have done, if they hadn’t sidelined the official America 250 commission and replaced it with a for-profit clownfuck run by cronies.

actually, you don’t have to imagine what could have happened. we have a post from a whistleblower that lays out exactly what might have been.

I worked at Smithsonian, specifically raising money for 250th. What I want people to know is we secured millions of private philanthropy to host a month long Folklife Festival on the mall, “The Festival of Festivals.” Was going to feature well known festivals, think Burning Man, Farm Aid, Grand Ole Oprey etc. as well as smaller local and regional festivals from across the U.S. and territories. Goal was to feature truly the best and most beautiful creative expression in music, dance, arts and craft traditions, food, community etc. Can’t name names but plan was to have headliners every night for free concerts.... Think the types of names who might be affiliated with the aforementioned large festivals. Stars were willing to perform because was under banner of Smithsonian. It had to all be scrapped because the administration would not release permits to host on the mall. The money went elsewhere, but our nation was robbed of what would have been a once in a generation cultural moment.

now, granted, this is some anonymous rando on the internet — so in the name of Responsible Journalism and Everything™, I asked Google’s janky six-fingered plagiarism robot to find me a link to the original post. it turns out that it’s a comment in a Reddit thread — and this New York Times report from February 5th seems to corroborate it.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Folklife Festival, held in Washington every summer since 1967, will not take place this summer in its usual spot on the National Mall, which instead will be used for President Trump’s Great American State Fair.

The Folklife Festival, the Smithsonian’s oldest and largest public event, “honors contemporary living cultural traditions and celebrates those who practice and sustain them,” according to the institution’s website. Typically, the festival brings artisans, performers and speakers from all around the country to the Mall for several weeks around July 4.

how lovely. a decades-old institution that attracts thousands and actually celebrates American culture and history — run by competent people who know what they’re doing — has been replaced by some ghost-town homage to Spinal Tap’s Stonehenge.

and that stupid mini-arch is already literally coming apart at the seams. look at this shoddy workmanship.

what a typical Donny shit-show. I can’t wait to find out how many millions of dollars got flushed on this fucktacular piece of shit that couldn’t even last two days without falling apart.

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I remember here in New York in 1976, the Bicentennial was all people talked about during the months leading up to it. it was a Big Fucking Deal. we had tall ships on the Hudson River.

fifty years later, all that excitement and anticipation is gone.

Donny decided to make America’s 250th birthday celebration all about himself, and no decent person wants any part of that.

it’s all so eternally embarrassing.

* * *

oh uh, it looks like America’s colicky piss-baby-in-chief woke up with a Big Sad in his diaper this morning.

Do you think people appreciate what a fantastic job we did in building and operating the Great American State Fair at the National Mall, packed with happy people, and everybody loving it? Ask yourself this simple question, “DO YOU THINK THAT OBUMA OR SLEEPY JOE BIDEN COULD HAVE DONE IT?” THE ANSWER IS NO!

I guess Donny’s been watching coverage of his pathetic little shit-show on the Mall.

do we think that ‘Obuma’ or Biden could have done better than Donny? the answer is yes. Obama or Biden could have done absolutely nothing at all, and more people would have been on the Mall this weekend.

Donny had exactly one chance to get this whole thing right, and he biffed it — and now he’s going to get all cranky at us about it, like somehow it’s our fault.

well, excuse us if we’re not in a celebratory mood, you hateful fuck.

you’ve taken our beloved country and turned it into something unrecognizable.

look at what you’ve inflicted on We the People.

masked and armed federal thugs are patrolling our cities, shooting at anyone who looks at them funny. what kind of un-American bullshit is that?

the East Wing was razed so that some piece of shit Epstein Dance Hall can be put up in its place. the Rose Garden is gone. the Oval Bordello has been violated. the Reflecting Pool is a toxic waste site.

ICE goons are kidnapping migrants off the streets and disappearing them in slave-labor gulags. the social safety net has been set on fire so that billionaires can get another round of tax cuts. a corrupt Supreme Court has torn up the Constitution, and is just making shit up as they go along. we’re all struggling to pay for basic goods and services. Christofascists think they own the place. some piss-drunk Secretary of Death is dropping bombs on innocent Iranian schoolgirls and Venezuelan fisherman.

excuse me if I don’t feel like waving the flag for any of that shit.

hey, bro. you want America to hold a huge party in your honor? resign, effective immediately. people will be dancing in the streets, I promise you.

will be wild.

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oh wait, is it time for the Daily Claudia already? spoiler alert: yes it is.

here’s Ms Spouse in our living room, on February 7, 2016.

and here’s the two of us, chilling at Lake Mohegan Park on a Saturday afternoon on September 20, 2023.

have a great Monday, everyone. don’t whine just because everything you do turns to shit.

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here’s your daily reminder that I can be found on Blue Sky at this link.

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this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.