Faux Patriot Donald Trump Embraces the Flag, not July Fourth Values

On the 250th anniversary of America’s independence – July 4, 2026 – our country may well be led by a man who is the antithesis of real patriotism: Donald J. Trump.

The front-runner for the November election, according to the majority of polls, wraps himself in the flag literally and figuratively and is prone to rhetorical bursts like “Make America Great Again.” He is a fan of liberty – when it benefits him.

I love Independence Day, which I’ve spent reporting on politicians in small town parades and picnics, taking my kids to watch fireworks from the top of the Federal Reserve building and ending the day with PBS’ inspiring musical tribute, “A Capitol Fourth.”

The holiday is about love of our country and those in it, about celebrating the virtues embodied at Philadelphia in 1776. Every one of us should read the Declaration of Independence today to remind ourselves of those values. (Historical fact: The declaration actually was approved on July 2, but printed two days later.)

But I’d be surprised if Trump ever read, much less identified with, its stirring words. He may be the only president who is a stranger to genuine patriotism, according to two experts I interviewed on the subject: John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College, long-time Republican and author of “Un-American: The Fake Patriotism of Donald J. Trump,” and Joseph Ellis, a bestselling author and influential scholar on the Founding Fathers.

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First, to establish Pitney’s GOP credentials: He was a legislative assistant for both former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Sen. Alfonse D’Amato of New York, as well as director of the Republican National Committee’s research department. He left the party only after Trump was elected.

He says that everything about Trump is contrary to the verities and values enshrined in the declaration. Starting with the famous line, “’We hold these truths,’ Trump flunks. To him, truth is whatever he wants it to be. He talks patriotism, but it’s empty,” Pitney says. “Trump is to patriotism what Tony Soprano,” the hypocritical Italian-American mob boss in “The Sopranos,” the HBO hit series, “was to Catholicism – all about rituals and nothing about substance.”

Patriotism, he says, is about ideals: truth, equality, human dignity and the rule of law, all of which Trump has disparaged.

Ellis, who has written highly acclaimed biographies of Presidents George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, shares Pitney’s contempt for the phony patriotism of the former president: “Trump is an inherent dictator, in contrast to what was in the declaration. He is incapable of grasping any authority outside of himself.” He’s more King George than George Washington.

Trump praises veterans, claiming that “vets love me.” Yet, according to his then White House chief of staff, John Kelly (a four-star Marine Corps General whose son died in combat in Afghanistan), Trump called fallen soldiers “suckers” and “losers.”

When he vows to prosecute political enemies such as Republican Liz Cheney, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or President Joe Biden for treason, it calls to mind what the British would have done to those courageous Founding Fathers in Philadelphia.

Trump would hate to learn that 8 of the 56 signers of the declaration were immigrants and that Thomas Paine, whose “Common Sense” pamphlet rallied the colonists, arrived on these shores less than two years earlier.

This has nothing to do with ideology or partisanship. No one should question the patriotism of Republicans such as President Ronald Reagan, Presidents George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush, nor Republican Sen. John McCain – nor of Democrats including former President Barack Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, or Biden

Some on the left disparage this holiday because the founders left women, Black Americans and Native Americans out of their lofty ideals. We still are trying to correct these wrongs and create a more perfect union.

Jefferson’s words were aspirational: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That message lives on in Americans’ hearts and souls and inspires people well beyond this country’s borders.

There are self-declared super-patriots on the right who celebrate the flag and July Fourth, but disdain equality, human dignity and even our institutions, including Congress and the democratic transfer of power.

As for Trump, his love of self doesn’t leave room for love of country.

I asked Ellis what the founders, who knew men were not angels and worried that democracy was inherently vulnerable to demagogues, might say about Trump. His response:

“We warned you.”

Washington columnist Albert R. Hunt has covered U.S. politics and presidential campaigns since 1972, previously for the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and the International New York Times. You can listen to his weekly podcast and read more on Substack.