In one month, the United States will observe its 250th birthday.

It is shaping up more like a memorial service for a lost loved one than a party to celebrate something special. Rather than anticipating a happy occasion, America at 250 is increasingly characterized by anger, name-calling and scandals.

Performers are withdrawing from Trump’s Freedom 250 Great American State Fair in Washington, claiming organizers lied to them about its partisanship. President Trump, who has contributed mightily to the growing divisions among us, is threatening to make a “major speech,” mostly to his MAGA crowd to fill the vacuum left by those who have withdrawn.

Is there anything new he could say that we haven’t heard dozens, perhaps thousands of times before? Would his rhetoric be uplifting, rather than self-aggrandizing? Based on the past, it doesn’t seem likely.

Contrast this dark mood with the July 4,1976 bicentennial. Gerald Ford, a modest man, was........

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