By Myra Adams – The Hill contributor

MYRA’S COMPLETE ARCHIVE IS HERE

Reposted from The Hill – Dec. 19, 2025

President Trump’s mint unveiled a coin commemorating his assassination attempt.

America’s last big birthday was the 1976 bicentennial. The 1969 moon landing solidified national pride, but the years leading up to 1976 were marked by a series of traumatic political events stemming from the Watergate scandal. Then, in April 1975, the Vietnam War, which had cost 58,220 American lives, ended in an embarrassing catastrophe. Meanwhile, the massive social movements for women’s rights and civil rights were taking hold and helped shape the nation we are today.

Having come of age as our nation endured turmoil and dramatic change, on July 4, 1976, I was proud to be an American, as a College Republican leader and an Army ROTC Cadet. From Fort Riley, Kan., I watched the bicentennial festivities with some of my fellow cadets. We were all proud that our country was forging ahead as the world’s greatest power.

Fifty years later, I feel less pride. As America nears its 250th birthday, dangerous trends threaten what our Founding Fathers envisioned when they boldly declared the United States into existence based on the revolutionary philosophy of unalienable rights “endowed by their Creator.” That philosophy was considered “revolutionary” because, for centuries, people’s rights and freedoms had been granted by kings rather than endowed by God.

Let’s examine four of those “dangerous trends” our founders would not have celebrated. Presented in no particular order, each poses an immediate and future national threat, beginning with the president’s desecration of national dignity.

On Flag Day — Sunday, June 14, which is also Trump’s 80th birthday — he will celebrate his passion for fighting by proudly hosting an Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed-martial arts event on the White House South Lawn. A 5,000-seat arena will be built to accommodate several cage-fight matches. This undignified display of violence, with fighter “weigh-ins” at the Lincoln Memorial, will diminish our national character at home and abroad. Is “Emperor Trump” reverting to the days of the Roman Colosseum, where gladiators fought to the death for the amusement of the masses?

 Another presidential throwback to Roman emperors was a proposed 250th-anniversary “Semiquincentennial $1 Coin” featuring Trump’s face and the inscriptions “Liberty,” “In God We Trust,” and “1776-2026.” More outrageous, in October, the Treasury unveiled a dollar coin with Trump’s iconic “fight-fight-fight” fist-pump visage.

Thankfully, half of Americans will celebrate the news that no official Trump coins will be minted in time for the 250th, at least according to current plans. The founders can applaud that one from their graves. Many believe, as I do, that a “fight-fight-fight” coin would have desecrated our national dignity.

However, on Monday, Trump managed to do that anyway by issuing the most outrageous, “inexplicable,” false political statement in response to the tragic murder of legendary Hollywood filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife. The bipartisan fallout continues on that one. On the cusp of our 250th anniversary year, George Washington’s 47th successor drove a stake through the last vestige of national civility, decency, and moral presidential leadership, just two months after bulldozing the East Wing of the White House.

The next dangerous trend in the semiquincentennial era is the imbalance among the legislative, executive and judicial branches. Our founders would be dismayed by the now weakened legislative branch they designed in Article 1 of the Constitution. It was the Constitution’s centerpiece, the branch closest to the people, where laws originate and where the power to tax and declare war resides.

Now the legislative branch has been willfully eroded and usurped by the executive branch, with the current occupant coercing legislators’ votes through fear and threats of primary challenges. The president sometimes acts more like a king, against whom the founders rebelled and declared independence.

Furthermore, the judicial branch, constitutionally described as “the judicial power,” that is “vested in one supreme Court,” has now often acted as a rubber stamp for the executive branch. Moving forward, our national challenge is whether the three coequal branches will ever revert to the original balance that has kept our nation strong and free. Read more..