"You have to go all the way back to President Harry Truman to find a president who even participated in the formal Washington celebration."

"(In 1951, Mr. Truman spoke from the Washington Monument about the progress of the Korean War.) In 1970, during the fractious era of Vietnam, President Richard Nixon videotaped remarks to be shown on the Mall. Other leaders have largely remained out of the picture, visiting troops or attending naturalization ceremonies or hosting bipartisan picnics on the South Lawn of the White House.... Mr. Trump, by contrast, cares not at all about public unity...."

Writes Michelle Cottle in "Trump Hijacks the 4th of July/The president decided that the one thing missing from the capital’s celebration was himself" (NYT), and I wonder how much she cares about public unity. Because I'm not feeling it. I mean, what's so bad about being like Harry Truman? It might be bad to "hijack" the occasion to propagandize about a war, and yet the 4th of July is kind of about enthusiasm about fighting wars. Those fireworks represent bombs bursting in air, don't they? Anyway, I think it's a good gesture to show up, if you do it the right way. It could be overly self-centered, but it doesn't have to be. I can be done in an appropriate scale and tone. We don't say Presidents "hijack" Easter when they do those egg roll events. Could everyone just calm down?