Why You Shouldn’t Visit Our National Parks Today
Trump is offering free admission on his birthday. It’s not a gift. It’s a brand extension.
Susan J. Demas is Lincoln Square’s Executive Editor and a 25-year journalism veteran. Subscribe to her Substack.
Whenever I can, I escape to America’s national parks and national forests. I’ve hiked more than 10,000 solo miles across four continents, summited more than 100 mountains, and backpacked legs of the Appalachian, Pacific Crest, and Continental Divide trails. I’ve slept under redwoods, woken to deer licking my laundry, and stumbled across waterfalls that no one else seemed to know existed.
I’ve always agreed with Ken Burns that our national parks are America’s greatest idea.
Which is exactly why I’m asking you not to go today.
The National Park Service will waive entrance fees today, June 14 — Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. The administration is marketing this as a gift to the American people. It’s not. It is the latest installment in a systematic effort to literally remake this country in one man’s image.
Think about what Trump has done to deface the symbols and institutions that belong to all of us. His face is now on the National Parks Pass — gallingly placed alongside the father of our country, George Washington. Trump’s signature is going on our currency. His face may soon follow. He’s tearing up the White House lawn to build a ballroom and a UFC fighting cage for his birthday celebration. He’s proposed a military-style arch to be built in his honor.
He has desecrated our nation and now he wants to put his name on everything that’s left standing.
And let’s not forget that the administration removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from the free admission calendar. Both of those days — among the most significant civil rights observances in America — were on the list last year. They’re gone now. In their place is Dear Leader’s birthday, which the Interior Department has rebranded as one of its new “patriotic fee-free days.”
“The raw & rank racism here stinks to high heaven,” wrote Cornell William Brooks, a former NAACP president and Harvard Kennedy School professor. He’s right.
Even though times are tough and a free trip to our public lands may sound appealing — don’t. Don’t participate in this. Don’t let your presence be used as evidence that Americans are celebrating his birthday at the public lands his administration is actively trying to destroy.
