America's 250th Anniversary: Choosing a Gift for the Nation That Has It All | Vanity Fair

When loved ones celebrate their first wedding anniversary, you’re supposed to give them something made of paper. Maybe that’s because year-old marriages have an unfortunate tendency to collapse when wet. In year three, the customary gift is leather, because by then a couple should really know each other’s kinks. In both years eight and nine, it’s pottery, because other middle-aged hobbies like “buying a boat” and “getting really into fermentation” hadn’t yet been invented when an anonymous group of Victorian weirdos first dreamed up this list.

Tradition decrees that couples don’t really get to the good stuff unless they stick it out till year 25, the silver anniversary. (As the adage goes: sweets for the sweet, but silver for the silver foxes.) Subsequent intervals of five bring increasingly valuable metals and gems: rubies, sapphires, gold. If they make it to 60 years, spouses will finally grab the proverbial brass ring, which in this context is actually made of diamonds. Assuming two people have friends with deep pockets and a taste for etiquette, it’s possible to accrue quite a treasure trove simply by staying married and managing not to die.

But the Victorians never said what we should give members of a union enduring past 60 or, at the high end of what’s physically possible, 75 years. For them, lasting that long or longer would have meant marrying distressingly early (which they were cool with, actually) while never getting tuberculosis. Even in the modern era, few mortals can achieve such milestone anniversaries, at least not without the help of a cryogenic freezer. (Congrats in advance on 101, Walt and Lillian!)

Yet on July 4, our fair nation will celebrate an even more formidable birthday. As Vanilla Ice may have mentioned, the United States is about to turn 250 years old—a quaint number if you’re Japan, but a big one in this hemisphere. This country already has amber waves of grain and purple mountains majesty; it’s lousy with Yankees Doodle and flags, grand and old. It possesses plenty of paper and pottery and precious gems, unequally distributed as they may be. It’s got freedom of speech (sometimes) and freedom of the press (ibid), mass enfranchisement (lol) and the separation of church and state (sure). It certainly has a lot of guns.

So what is left for the enterprising giver to give? What could even the most generous patriot possibly get the country that has everything?

If you’re Donald Trump, the answer is simple: Donald Trump. Since his second inauguration, the president has spent an inordinate amount of time droning on about his tacky plans for America’s 250th, including a rally that will replace a concert series almost every artist dropped out of, a UFC match on the White House lawn, and a scheme to turn the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool the shade of melted blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers. (It didn’t work, leaving the pool water looking uncannily like Mountain Dew.) The former steak salesman also wants to build a new “triumphal arch” in Washington, because nothing says “America” like “similar to something in France, but worse.”

If Trump were really interested in giving the American people what they want, he would livestream himself trying to pronounce the word semiquincentennial. Barring that or another tricky encounter with a set of stairs, it seems unlikely that our 47th commander in chief is up to this task. I’m as shocked as you to find something Trump has failed at, but facts are facts.

Perhaps one of his impulses was not entirely off base. A large structure of some sort could be an apt way to mark the US’s 250th—something elegantly designed and unique, something that speaks to both the promise and the contradictions inherent to this fair land. (And no, wise guy, that gold statue of Trump does not count.) A national competition could be held, Vietnam Veterans Memorial–style, to solicit ideas from sea to shining sea, with a panel of experts selecting the best one and officially commissioning its construction.

If we start now, we’ll be ready to present America with her 250th gift sometime in, oh, 2035. But while good intentions falling victim to difficult execution and miles of red tape would be very American, it doesn’t feel particularly celebratory.

Could the solution instead be found in Hollywood—the creation of an epic project that truly encapsulates the American experience without explicitly being labeled as such, crafted by local talent and brought to life by beloved American performers (who may or may not be British actors who learned the accent from watching Friends)? Maybe. However, the quintessential American films—An American Tail and Top Gun: Maverick—already exist, and it's hard to imagine anyone improving upon them with the limited time left before July 4. Is the ideal gift a painting (seems too European), a symphony (definitely too European), a custom piece of patriotic content about Uncle Sam and the Statue of Liberty? (Definitely American, but perhaps too niche—and whose uncle is Sam anyway?) Is it an app, either of the technological variety or reminiscent of a "small plate from TGI Fridays"? Is it a hat? Does anyone still wear hats these days?

The issue with this playful thought experiment is that any concrete suggestion seems redundant, while any imaginative one is too subjective, and any sincere one (universal health care, universal income, complimentary tickets to Universal Studios) comes off as overly sentimental. And I say that in a negative way, even though corn is a native crop.

Perhaps the real problem is that the concept of a handout contradicts the principles that our founding fathers loved to lecture about. We are known as a nation of rebels, pioneers, individuals who lift themselves up by their own bootstraps. (Speaking of bootstraps—where can you even purchase those these days?) From the Boston Tea Party to manifest destiny, to the aggressive expansion of OpenAI, we are more about taking than giving, and we expect gratitude once we're done.

So maybe the most fitting 250th birthday gift for America is no gift at all. Or perhaps a personalized card accompanied by a dazzlingly white American smile. In situations like this, it's truly the thought that counts.

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