The United States is celebrating its 250th birthday in a particularly tense political climate, this Saturday, July 4, 2026, according to a specialist in American politics.
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US President Donald Trump kicked off the celebrations at the foot of Mount Rushmore, raising the specter of communism as a domestic threat. For Romuald Sciora, director of the United States Political and Geostrategic Observatory at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), this speech is part of a well-calculated political strategy and reveals something more worrying.
Communist rhetoric serving an agenda
Mr. Sciora, a Franco-American living in the United States, immediately brushes aside any reality behind Mr. Trump’s warning: “I live in the United States, I am an American, believe me, there is no danger of communist subversion today. »
According to him, two logics explain this speech. First, popular frustration with the concessions granted to Iran: “Americans know that in principle, it is not a loser who receives money at the end of a war”, and a possible preparation of public opinion for an intervention against Cuba.
Then, an authoritarian drift in the making: “To justify this new headlong rush towards authoritarianism on the part of Donald Trump and his administration, there must be an enemy from within, there must be a danger. And communism speaks to the imagination of Americans. »
A confiscated birthday
Beyond the rhetoric, it is the symbolic appropriation of the 250th anniversary that concerns the expert. He denounces a double takeover (a hostile takeover): that of the president, who uses July 4 to fuel a cult of personality, and that of his administration which rewrites history, including revised school textbooks, exhibitions on slavery banned and the 200 words banned according to the New York Timesindicate M. Sciora.
“These two takeover bids upset a majority of Americans, even Republicans who voted for Trump,” he said.
Watch the full interview in the video above.
