America turns 250 on Saturday — a landmark birthday that coincides with a time of deep national division and a president determined to seize the celebratory center stage.
The anniversary also comes amid a brutal heat wave that has put about 160 million Americans under major or extreme heat warnings, playing havoc with planned parades and block parties in towns and cities across much of the country.
But the high temperatures have done little to deter President Donald Trump, who has gone to great lengths to ensure the event becomes, for the most part, a celebration of himself.
On Saturday night, Trump will hold a huge campaign-style political rally on the National Mall in the capital Washington, along with noisy military flyovers and what he has billed as the world’s biggest fireworks display.
“It’s going to be like 107 degrees (41C) outside, and I’m going to go and give a really long speech – just to show that I can do anything,” he said earlier.
Late Friday, the president visited Mount Rushmore National Monument for a speech under the gaze of the giant granite heads of his four legendary ancestors.
– “The threat to our land” –
While he extolled American exceptionalism and praised the country’s past leaders, he said American identity was “under renewed attack.”
Taking aim at domestic “radicals and extremists”, he charged that there was “a resurgence of the communist threat in our country”.
It’s a theme Trump has repeatedly hammered home in recent weeks, as the Democratic Party’s anti-establishment left swept a string of US primary victories.
The president has slammed the left’s rise ahead of November’s midterm elections as “communists” on the rampage, posing a major “threat” to the country.
On Friday, Trump said there has been an effort to “beat the American spirit out of us, to take us away from our history” in recent years.
While his language was inconsistent with the more violent anti-immigrant rhetoric he has used in past speeches, the underlying message was clear.
“You don’t have to be born here, but you have to love what we’ve built,” he said.
The location of Trump’s speech was a fitting backdrop for a president who sees himself as one of the greats.
Trump’s supporters have even introduced legislation to have his likeness carved alongside those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.
– Celebration and reflection –
For Americans, the 250th celebrations offer a moment for reflection as well as celebration.
After two and a half centuries of triumphs and tragedies, slavery and freedom, civil war and world wars, multiple polls show a nation divided about where it is and where it is going.
A Quinnipiac University poll found that 61 percent of Americans thought the U.S. was not living up to the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence — though opinion was split on that, too, with a majority of Republicans thinking yes, and a majority of Democrats thinking no.
“There’s a lot of people who hate each other, steal from each other. They don’t love each other,” said Los Angeles-based artist Johnny Presley.
“I’m sick of the way this country treats people. I’m sick of the way this country treats its foreign neighbors,” he added. “I’m bored of a damn lot of things.”
For others, like Iranian-American Karisa Tavassoli, an educator in Atlanta, the basics of the American dream still ring true.
“I have security, I have freedom of speech, I have freedom of religion, I can wear whatever I want as a woman,” she told AFP.
“There are many flaws here, but we have something very special that is worth protecting,” she added.
Alonzo Coby, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes, is grateful to be able to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States.
“But I want people to remember that Native Americans have been here for a lot longer than 250 years,” he said.
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