Some family plans to sink $1 billion into building a “patriotic theme park” in Columbia Falls, Maine, centered around a 1,776 foot tall flagpole – flying an American flag the size of a football field – according to a Fox News article that reads basically like a press release. “Everyone feels the division we’re all experiencing right now. We hope this creates an opportunity for Americans to come together,” says “Flagpole of Freedom Park” managing director Rob Worcester, whose family runs the “Wreaths Across America” veteran’s memorial organization. The family plans to break ground in 2023, aiming to have the park open by the nation’s semiquincentennial on July 4th, 2026.
It’s not clear if the nigh-Biblical hubris of the proposed flagpole would be less evident if they were locating the park somewhere a little bit more central to the rest of the United States and not 40 miles from the Canadian border on the remotest possible stretch of the East Coast. “It’s all about healing America,” says park spokesperson Van Morris in a large typeface quote in the Fox News article, going all feel-goody in lieu of an explanation as to how the fuck a 1,776 foot flagpole is supposed to heal America – or even turn a profit – if it’s an hour and half drive from I-95 – on a good day – in a sparsely populated backwater corner of the United States.