Less than a day after hosting an Ultimate Fighting Championship fight on the White House lawn, President Donald Trump turned his attention to announcing another splashy event: the July 4th event in Washington meant to mark the nation’s 250th anniversary, which Trump says will now be “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all” and feature the “largest fireworks show in history.”

As MS NOW reported, this event was, according to the organization managing the event, originally intended to celebrate America’s founding and love of country in a nonpartisan manner. The event description made no mention of Trump and promised a “celebration of the people, principles, and patriotic spirit that make the United States the greatest nation in the world.”

But Trump is politicizing the event, once more co-opting the country’s anniversary into a personal celebration, and selling it with the same energy that one might advertise a monster truck show.

I can’t help but think of that warning that populists pander to the public and divert their attention from misdeeds with “bread and circuses.” But Trump’s political strategy has gone all in on circuses — and the bread has gone moldy.

Trump is barely even attempting to govern anymore, but he is feverishly devoted to crafting the symbolism of power.

It is not uncommon for presidents to sponsor fun cultural events at the White House. But Trump’s UFC fight used entertainment as a reactionary political forum, encouraging his supporters to see violence as a just and honorable signifier of their politics.  

The Lincoln Memorial is a sacred place in the American story, meant to prompt reflection about our republic’s existential questions. Trump held a weigh-in for his UFC fight here, a desecration.

The event itself, held in a gigantic metal structure called “The Claw” on the White House lawn — at which a fighter repulsively croaked, “Michelle Obama is a man! Am I right, America?” — sent a message to the rest of America about who was welcome and who was not at Trump’s party outside the People’s House. It also signaled to members of a right-wing movement built on a caricature of militant masculinity that Trump values their support.

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Having started a disastrous, failed war of choice and holding record-low approval numbers, Trump has retreated to party planning and interior decorating. The UFC event was only the latest, but his pageants have also included an over-the-top military parade, decking the White House in gold, draping images of his face everywhere in Washington and providing bizarre updates on renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Trump is barely even attempting to govern anymore, but he is feverishly devoted to crafting the symbolism of power. And he’s going to lean into it through the semiquincentennial celebrations.

Trump might be entertaining some in his base with these circuses, and they serve as a way to telegraph his support of pro-regime paramilitaries. But he has also completely forgotten that other vital prong of vulgar populism — the bread. During Trump’s first term, the economy hummed along decently, the memory of which played a key role in his return to office. But this term, he is presiding over a self-made affordability crisis, and he couldn’t be less concerned. In fact, he’s showing outright scorn for the people. 

Trump boasted, “I love the inflation,” when reporters pressed him about inflation reaching a three-year high, driven in large part by an energy price surge he caused. He proudly declared, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” as he loses a war he promised not to start and has no clear plan to get out of. He has taken no serious steps to relieve working Americans from the extra financial pressure. And he’s starting to hemorrhage support because of these intertwined crises.

One of Trump’s political talents has been using his clownish charisma and culture wars to convince right-leaning, working-class Americans that he’s on their side — just as he signs legislation and regulations that are gifts to tech tycoons and the richest 1%. But if the fundamentals of the economy aren’t working — particularly after a previous round of inflation under a predecessor — it could spell disaster for his party during the midterm elections. At some point, people need that bread.