America’s war of independence might have gone badly wrong had George Washington’s armies not “manned the air” and secured the airports. Or so US President Donald Trump seems to think.

As his speeches go, his July 4 address was a model of self-restraint. Mr Trump rarely seemed to deviate from his autocue. There were no chants of “Lock her up!”, or “Build that wall!”. The crowd was not in that kind of mood.

An afternoon of near-monsoon downpours had damped the atmosphere. For Mr Trump, speaking from behind rain-splattered bulletproof glass, it was a chance to show off the kind of airborne hardware — a B2 bomber, two F-22 Raptors and six F/A 18 Super Hornet fighters — that America’s revolutionary army famously unleashed on the redcoats. Or so that joke might go.