{"id":215735,"date":"2026-07-02T18:39:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T18:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/a-storm-overpriced-food-and-a-sad-ferris-wheel-inside-trumps-dreadful-state-fair-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T18:39:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T18:39:54","slug":"a-storm-overpriced-food-and-a-sad-ferris-wheel-inside-trumps-dreadful-state-fair-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/a-storm-overpriced-food-and-a-sad-ferris-wheel-inside-trumps-dreadful-state-fair-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"A storm, overpriced food and a sad ferris wheel: inside Trump\u2019s dreadful state fair – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attendance at the Great American State Fair is sparse and the heat is extreme, but at least you can pay $25 for a pretzel
This was originally published in This Week in Trumpland. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday<\/a>
I have been to some disappointing fairs in my time. There was one, in a small town in north-west England, where the main attraction was a little slide that you rode down on a burlap sack: except the guy who owned the slide had forgotten to bring the sacks, so me and my sister slid down on a T-shirt.
Another time, at a village fete in a place called Longton, I won the main prize at the bingo. It was a whisky decanter with a bottle of whiskey. I was 11 years old, the decanter was broken and some bigger boys took the whiskey. More recently, I looked on as two farmers engaged in a shouting match over whose pumpkin was larger at a fair in Iowa.
Such exposure means I\u2019m probably better equipped than most to see the possibility in Donald Trump\u2019s Great American State Fair, but even given my breadth of bad fair experience, the Trump National Mall even sounds absolutely dreadful.
\u201cA rather embarrassing flop,\u201d MS Now wrote<\/a>. \u201cA big ol\u2019 dud,\u201d was the verdict of Slate<\/a>. \u201cTo put it simply, miserable,\u201d the New Republic ruled<\/a>, while USA Today said<\/a> witnessing the failure of Trump\u2019s fair is \u201clike watching your high school bully host a party that no one attends\u201d.
What makes it so bad?
Well for one thing, very few people seem to have been going. For another, the fair\u2019s signature attraction, a (quite small) ferris wheel, was plagued by power cuts<\/a> on the first day. And despite organizers\u2019 claims that 56 states and territories would be represented, each given their own booths at the event, several declined to participate<\/a> due to cost.
The opening ceremony was meant to be a musical extravaganza, featuring acts including Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, the Commodores, Morris Day and the Time, Young MC, and Flo Rida, but most of those performers pulled out, several saying they had been unaware the event would have a political undertone.
Instead, people attending the opening night got a performance from Trump: specifically, a campaign-style rally during which the president trotted out his usual claims about how the US is the \u201chottest country anywhere in the world\u201d. (Ironically, the Virginia booth at the fair was closed on Tuesday due to extreme heat<\/a>, and the fair itself was forced to close early<\/a> on its second day, because of a storm.)
Things got worse when a Confederate flag had to be removed<\/a> from a booth at the fair, prompting one of the sponsors to drop out. Then there was more negative publicity as people found out how much things cost<\/a> at the event: $25 for a pretzel, $23 for a turkey leg, $9 for a lemonade.
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Against this backdrop, Fox News has valiantly tried to put positive spin on the fair, like the White Star Line claiming people had enjoyed a very pleasant four days at sea before the Titanic hit that iceberg. The channel even broadcast live from the fair on Monday, the idea being to champion the event. But, as the journalist Aaron Rupar documented<\/a>, all that achieved was to prove that very few people were in attendance.
So what have we learned? Maybe the lesson is: don\u2019t try to throw a big celebratory fair when you are a historically unpopular president<\/a>. Or: if you do host a fair, make sure it is a) good, and b) doesn\u2019t have a racist flag on display.
The fair is larger than the ones I went to as a kid. But you know what? At least those ones were fun. And cheap. The sack\/T-shirt slide only cost 20p. The scar on my knee, sustained when friction caused the T-shirt to rip? That will last a lifetime.<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attendance at the Great American State Fair is sparse and the heat is extreme, but at least you can pay $25 for a pretzelThis was originally published in This Week in Trumpland. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every WednesdayI have been to some disappointing fairs in my time. There was one, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}