Despite Searing Heat, Great American State Fair Isn’t Exactly a Ghost Town as Reported

In.three days under the broiling sun, this reporter could hardly find anyone who was aware of the deluge of criticism of the whole show in the press. Comments like, “I love it,” “It’s fantastic, ”Fabulous,” were about all people were saying as they wandered from pavilion to pavilion, looking at exhibits ranging from historical and informative to clearly conservative with messages that most visitors were not in a mood to question.While news photographs focused on stretches of greensward largely bereft of crowds, the photographers did not seem to have found time to poke into the pavilions where sizeable numbers converged. They were there not just to look at the exhibits but to find relief in air-conditioned comfort that shielded fair-goers from temperatures spiking above 100 degrees before the big holiday weekend. The longer the crowds lingered in any of the spacious pavilions built across the mall, the more they got engrossed with knowledgeable experts. The show put on by NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, extolled the prospects for exploring the moon, the solar system and the outer fringes of the universe. Several people from NASA, including a physicist, were glad to answer just about any question, however silly. A few feet away, an amusing video portrayed man’s resistance to change from the time people discovered how to set fires about 400,000 years ago. At every stage, the video showed resistance to change — even, at the advent of sailing, making the transition from muscle power to wind power. Then there’s the image of a man eager to show his invention of a needle to inject medicine into people. His colleague scoffs, preferring to stick with leeches. The video leads up to resistance to AI, the way of the future for instant research and writing.No one strolling through the pavilions seemed to mind the political and social messaging inherent in some of what they saw. Hillsdale College, known for the conservative views of its faculty and students, advertised its program in a pavilion also showcasing conservative Christian and social groups.A young woman cheerfully pointed to an entry in the school’s catalog featuring a professor, Mark Moyar, who has written revisionist histories contesting left-leaning academic views of the Vietnam War. A summa cum laude graduate of Harvard with a doctorate from Cambridge, Mr. Moyar, unable to get a position at just about any other university, directs Hillsdale’s project on military history.The most audacious unorthodox voice at the whole fair may be that of an artist from Staten Island, the relatively small New York borough that remains an enclave of conservatism in a decidedly left-leaning city. The artist, Scott Lobaido, stakes his reputation on his success at painting thousands of images of the American flag. He’s doing just that every day of the fair, putting the finishing touches on his largest flag picture to date while fairgoers gape and cheer at every deft stroke of his brush. “You won’t find my work in any museum or on sale at Sotheby’s,” he says. Such august institutions, he boasts. “won’t touch me.”Nobody in the crowd is about to question either Mr. Lobadio’s artistry or his words. One woman, almost tearfully, tells him, “You are the greatest,” inspiring him to proclaim the American flag “the symbol of the greatest democracy in the history of the world.”The exhibits range from interesting to fun, including those for a patriotic group featuring a huge image of the Declaration of Independence that visitors are urged to sign with quill pens. You are free to pick up copies of the declaration plus a statement that American Revolutionary War soldiers signed acknowledging “the United States of America to be Free, Independent and Sovereign States” whose people “owe no allegiance or obedience to George the Third, the King of Great Britain.”While just about every visitor seemed to be enjoying or at least appreciating the show, a visit to the fair does present one hazard. Visitors, fighting the sun, have to trudge nearly a mile between 4th and 14th streets in central DC to take in the whole event. A look of a few hours, with breaks for guzzling bottles of water provided gratis, would not be nearly enough to see it all. After cooling off in one of the pavilions, many flocked to displays featuring the 50 states and several territories despite the refusal of a few states, led by Democratic governors, to join officially in the fun. Regardless, they all had one or two people ready to stamp a page in a “passport” and answer questions.At the Utah display, a Mormon couple said, yes, Mormons were noted for having large families, but polygamy, definitely illegal, was confined to one remote community near the southern border. At the Nevada display, a woman laughed when asked why a video showed casinos in Las Vegas but did not mention the famously legal brothels there. “I’ve seen a couple of them,” she said with a grin, “but, no, we’re not advertising them.”A Ferris wheel loomed high above the end of the fairgrounds against the background of the Capitol. Fair-goers had to choose between a rodeo, including a cute miniature pony about three feet tall, and a concert on the “main stage” at the far other end. On the way there, you could take a look at displays of the fanciest late-model cars and John Deere tractors. Artists may indeed have dropped off the program, but a band of young people, said to be in high school, and two or three soloists captivated a few hundred on the grass one evening. As the temperature cooled and the sun faded, a great image of the American flag and the words, “America’s 250th,” flashed on the screen. The applause turned to loud cheers.

Despite Searing Heat, Great American State Fair Isn’t Exactly a Ghost Town as Reported

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