Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to pour into Washington, D.C., for the 250th anniversary celebrations, and federal law enforcement is answering with thousands of officers and agents, 5,000 National Guard troops, military-style vehicles and other hardware. The capital is being turned into a security zone for a holiday built around freedom. That’s the setup.
Who Gets the City
Darren B. Cox, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said at a recent press conference that “D.C. on a normal day is a target-rich environment” and added, “We are prepared for any threats.” Tara McLeese, special agent in charge of the Secret Service Washington Field Office, said, “Our protective model is meant to adjust to any type of direct or indirect threats that we come across. I can assure you that we have no lack of imagination as to the potential threats out there.” Those are the words of the apparatus, spoken as the apparatus expands.
The largest crowds are expected July 4, with multiple events happening at once, including the Great American State Fair, a showcase for each state that stretches across the National Mall. The annual fireworks display that night has been designated a National Security Special Event for the first time by the Department of Homeland Security, giving it the highest classification for federal security coordination. Freedom, apparently, now comes with the highest classification for control.
For visitors, that means strict ID requirements, long lines and magnetometers, similar to air travel security. Snipers are also expected to be deployed at some events. Flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, across the Potomac River from Washington, will be suspended longer than in other years because of the scope of the celebrations, from noon on July 4 until the next day. Other America 250 events that include flyovers or parachute jumps could prompt more flight disruptions. Ordinary people get the lines, the checks and the delays. The state gets the spectacle.
The Machinery on Display
The FBI, Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police, U.S. Park Police and D.C. National Guard have all been involved in security coordination. At the press conference earlier this month, equipment that could be deployed to guard the city was on display, including BearCat armored SWAT vehicles, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, communication vans and FBI diving boats. The pageantry of power doesn’t stop at speeches. It rolls in on armored wheels.
Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard II, interim commander of the D.C. National Guard, said the planning had been underway for months and included rehearsals. He said guard members would continue the roles they have served the last 10 months as part of a deployment to the city President Donald Trump says is meant to fight crime. Blanchard said guard members, including military police officers, would help with traffic and crowd control and respond to emergencies around the events. The people on the ground are told they’re there for safety. The function is control.
President Trump has already attended several events leading up to July 4, including the kickoff rally last week launching the Great American State Fair, and has said on Truth Social that he would hold a rally on the National Mall. Speaking at a press conference Monday updating the upcoming security preparations, Cox said that “at this time we are not tracking any credible threats related to the July 4th event, but we always remain vigilant.” No credible threats, yet the city still gets flooded with troops, armored vehicles and surveillance-ready hardware. That’s the logic of the security state: prepare the cage first, ask questions later.
What They Call Order
The festivities come at a fraught moment, with recent political violence creating a complex threat environment. One man, Cole Tomas Allen, has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president after he sprinted past security at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in April. Allen has pleaded not guilty. In the following weeks, two men on two separate occasions opened fired at Secret Service officers, the service said. Each incident happened in the vicinity of the White House. More recently, the FBI announced it had thwarted a planned attack targeting Trump’s UFC cage-fighting show at the White House, and several suspects have been arrested in that case.
Security was already enhanced on the National Mall ahead of the launch of festivities, as Trump claimed without providing evidence that vandals had damaged the Reflecting Pool that he had recently renovated. Matt Dallek, a political scientist at George Washington University who studies extremism, said Trump posed a unique security challenge because he is “both an accelerant and a target of political violence.” That’s the contradiction at the center of the whole spectacle: the same political machine that stokes the chaos then demands more force to contain it.
Observers draw some parallels to the 1976 bicentennial. The nation was coming off Watergate and Vietnam and 10 months before the celebration there were two assassination attempts against then-President Gerald Ford. “There was a lot of sourness in the country in ’76, a lot of cynicism about the direction of the country,” Dallek said. But both Ford and his democratic opponent Jimmy Carter understood the threat political divisions posed and “were looking to bring down the level of vitriol.”
Angelyn Spaulding Flowers, Professor of Homeland Security & Administration of Justice at the University of the District of Columbia, said the amount of security was unparalleled for the city, citing the ongoing and open-ended National Guard presence that has flooded Washington with additional security patrols for months. The capital is being managed like a permanent operation, and the people who live there are left to navigate the checkpoints, patrols and armed presence that come with it.