We know what some of you are thinking: Doesn’t this feel like a gaudy way for the president to steal some of the day’s glory for himself — to make this, at least in part, “A Salute to Donald Trump”?

Yes, it does. But in hijacking America’s birthday party, Mr. Trump is doing more than merely indulging his petty narcissism. He is trampling a longstanding tradition of keeping these events nonpartisan — apolitical even — and focused on bringing the nation together.

For decades, Washington’s Fourth of July tribute has aimed to play down or paper over political divisions and celebrate America — not any particular leader or party. Recognizing their power to distract, not to mention incite, presidents have opted to absent themselves from the events. They don’t appear on stage at the concert. They don’t preside over the fireworks. They certainly don’t grab themselves a prime-time speaking slot. On the National Mall. In front of the monument to arguably America’s greatest president. Where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech.

You have to go all the way back to President Harry Truman to find a president who even participated in the formal Washington celebration . (In 1951, Mr. Truman spoke from the Washington Monument about the progress of the Korean War.) In 1970, during the fractious era of Vietnam, President Richard Nixon videotaped remarks to be shown on the Mall. Other leaders have largely remained out of the picture, visiting troops or attending naturalization ceremonies or hosting bipartisan picnics on the South Lawn of the White House. (Three of the first five presidents died on July 4.)

This is not to suggest that the party has remained free of political controversy. In 1970, protests over the Vietnam War roiled the ceremonies. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan’s interior secretary, James Watt, caused a kerfuffle by banning the Beach Boys from performing on the Mall, saying they would attract “the wrong element.” Mr. Reagan and Nancy Reagan, longtime Beach Boys fans, reversed him. (Mr. Watt, summoned to the Oval Office to explain why he preferred the Las Vegas troubadour Wayne Newton to the Beach Boys, left with a plaster model of a foot with a bullet hole through it.)