Comparing the mood of America's 250th anniversary with its 200th in 1976

By — Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/comparing-the-mood-of-americas-250th-anniversary-with-its-200th-in-1976 Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comparing the mood of America's 250th anniversary with its 200th in 1976 Politics Jun 19, 2026 6:04 PM EDT This article originally appeared on PolitiFact . A country in a sour mood. Inflation and gasoline prices soaring. A culture war raging. A president with sagging approval ratings. America at 250? Actually, America at 200 and 250. As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of its founding, a look back five decades to 1976 — the year of the nation's bicentennial — reveals notable similarities with today. READ MORE: How Americans are marking the country's big 2-5-0 Substitute Richard Nixon for Donald Trump, Vietnam for Iran and Watergate for using the Justice Department to reward friends and punish enemies and you can see a pretty fair resemblance between 1976 and 2026. "The parallels are eerie: international conflict, domestic strife, political turmoil, partisan division and economic instability," said Marc Stein, a San Francisco State University historian. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. As the 250th approached, we asked a handful of historians to describe their sense of the national mood during both celebrations, and how the commemorations were similar and different. In both 1976 and 2026, the U.S. was celebrating an anniversary amid "major crises of confidence about national values, vices, and virtues, and about the past, present, and future of national greatness," Stein said. The zeitgeist during the two periods diverged in some ways, notably in the degree of partisan polarization, which is generally considered much higher today. How did the nation celebrate the bicentennial? In recent weeks, several musical acts pulled out of a series of 250th anniversary concerts scheduled on the National Mall. The performers' complaint that the event had become politicized was underscored when Trump countered by saying he might hold a political rally instead. Other 250th anniversary events, many organized by the Freedom 250 group with close ties to Trump, include a UFC event on the White House lawn and a religious event on the National Mall. A top-down presidential approach is not entirely new for such celebrations; it's also how the bicentennial developed. WATCH: New book explores America's history of celebrating freedom while excluding millions Planning began a decade ahead of time in 1966, with President Lyndon B. Johnson creating a bipartisan commission to organize the commemoration. Johnson wanted a World's Fair, an echo of the 1876 centennial in Philadelphia. But within two years, Johnson was out of office. When Nixon became president, he appointed "political cronies and l