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Trump’s Military Parade Idea Sets Up Democrats for Another Fall
Trump was inspired by the Bastille Day parade he attended last summer in Paris.
President Trump and the Pentagon are quietly planning a grand military parade to roll through Washington DC later this year:
The inspiration for Trump’s push is last year’s Bastille Day celebration in Paris, which the president attended as a guest of French President Emmanuel Macron. Trump was awestruck by the tableau of uniformed French troops marching down Avenue des Champs-Elysees with military tanks, armored vehicles, gun trucks and carriers — complete with fighter jets flying over the Arc de Triomphe and painting the sky with streaks of blue, white and red smoke for the colors of the French flag.
Aboard Air Force One en route home from Paris last July, aides said Trump told them he was dazzled by the French display and said he wanted one at home.
It was still on his mind two months later when he met with Macron on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“It was one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen,” Trump told reporters. “It was two hours on the button, and it was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France.”
Seated next to Macron, Trump added: “We’re going to have to try to top it.”
Military parades like this are uncommon in recent history, but certainly not unheard of. Presidents Truman and Kennedy featured military hardware in their inaugural parades. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton had fighter jets scream through the sky for their inaugurations. The elder Bush also had a DC military parade to celebrate victory following the Gulf War.
The Washington Post broke this story about 90 minutes ago and, ever since, social media has exploded in outrage.
A man who dodged the draft 5 times, from an entire family of people who never served, making the military give him a parade. And we're paying for it. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
— Sarah Cooper (@sarahcpr) February 6, 2018
One step closer to the autocracy. All hail #KimJongTrump. https://t.co/SmbQSHRITq
— Leonard Pitts, Jr. (@LeonardPittsJr1) February 6, 2018
Spoiled rich boy demands he be able to play with his toys if he can’t even use a small nuke for fun. The good people of a once proud nation continue to watch and hope this doesn’t end in dictatorial rule. https://t.co/ctchQfOjyL
— Ian Livingston (@islivingston) February 6, 2018
Things that dictators do… https://t.co/W2bCn5eskS
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) February 6, 2018
Since this is Trump’s idea, I think we all know how it will go down. Nearly everyone from political and media castes will deride the parade, comparing Trump to Hitler. In an effort to impress their woke friends, several prominent voices will go too far by savagely denigrating the military itself. Then the American people will be polled and we’ll find out that they like the idea.
It’s the NFL protests all over again.
I’m a veteran who’s not thrilled about a big parade. Everyone on earth knows that America has the biggest, baddest military the world has ever seen — we don’t need to brag. And with a $20 trillion debt, I’d rather the money not be spent on chest-beating hoopla. But the average American doesn’t care about our shaky finances and adores our military.
A grand military display is poor economics, but I predict it will be smart politics heading into the midterms. Trump is once again Lucy from Peanuts setting up the football and the press is Charlie Brown, falling tail over tea kettle into another puddle of mud.
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Published in Military, Politics
Its not the economics or the symbolism that bother me, its the “red-ass” for the troops who have to plan and participate. I intentionally passed on a retirement ceremony at the end of my career, because I saw so many folks burden the troops at their command with these ceremonial time eaters. Much better to just give them a day off, or throw a big barbecue/concert for them and their families.
That’s what I’m talkin’ about!
This is my idea of a celebration: John Williams at West Point, with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
I propose a compromise. We can have the parade but it can’t be televised.
Every Memorial day the small town I grew up in had WWI veterans in jeeps, marching WWII vets, a smattering of Korean vets (my dad) and whatever military hardware the town could scrape up from the local National Guard. I don’t remember a tank, but there were lots of trucks and jeeps. There was always a float reenacting the planting of the flag at Iwo Jima.
I guarantee you, if they could have had tanks and missile launchers, they would have been in the parade as well.
Doesn’t DC do a parade anyway? This parade would just be bigley!
We have military parades, we just don’t have them in DC.
As a former paratrooper, let me point you to “All American Week” where the 82nd Airborne division struts its stuff.
http://www.fayobserver.com/news/20170516/your-guide-to-all-american-week-2017
Trump is invited to come down and see it whenever he wants.
I’m not a fan of this type of parade. It’s an aggressive signal to the world, for one thing. Sometimes that might be needed, but if we aren’t at that point, it’s more likely to stiffen spines and increase arms deals between our competitors and our potential foes.
Military parades from weaker powers are more like a bird ruffling its feathers to make itself look more threatening. It’s a show of defiance, to an extent. But when the country with overwhelming military force starts parading it around, people get nervous.
Also, it plays right into Trump’s opponent’s hands in that it supports their portrayal of him as a modern Mussolini. So why do that?
Also, I’d give the soldiers a break. This parade is gonna suck, and is going to be a magnet for trouble.
It is faster than your average parade.
I’m in favor of having our military put on a parade… in downtown Pyongyang.
LoL
Well, FDR did have a soviet spy on his personal staff. I’m not a Truman fan, but that was the right decision.
For holding a patriotic parade celebrating our military? Please don’t throw him into that briar patch.
This is a terrible idea, mostly because it’s completely outside of American tradition. On the rare occasions that we’ve paraded military hardware through the streets, there’s been one of three things happening: an inauguration (of a President who served in the military), a recent and clear cut military victory (as in World War II), or a formally declared war (again, World War II). “France does it” is not a reason to do anything, and the comparisons it calls forward are not going to be to European democracies – and you don’t have to be on the left to be uncomfortably aware of that.
But it’s a nice change from the traditional American pussy hats.
Upside of a parade? Honors our military.
Critics have Trump backwards they think Trump is as narcissistic as they are. The parade doesn’t honor him – he salutes and honors THEM, like the rest of us.
Cost? Aren’t all these participants already on the payroll? Can’t be that much more for gasoline and diesel… what else? Dry cleaning? Shoe polish?
Recruitment? Better than 10 Super Bowl ads.
Would Obama ever have done this? Says it all.
Do it!
Gee Fred. If we start a GoFundMe would it be OK?
The money for a parade would be pocket lint in the DOD budget. Maybe if we didn’t fund free stuff for Illegals we can scrape together the cash.
I love it. Given enough time to schedule a trip I’ll be there.
Do we know that Trump is really planning a parade? All we have is a story from that very pro-Trump newspaper the Washington Post (just kidding) that someone leaked that Trump is wants a big 4th of July parade.
The story is based on a leak. It could be Trump wants a big parade. It could be that at a meeting Trump asked what the attendees thought about the idea – just throwing out an idea. We don’t know.
The result? We have an outbreak of chin-pulling by the usual suspects (Democrat and “conservative/libertarian”) that hate Trump, and a bunch of fist pumping by those who support him. And we get a lot of Democrats (and usual suspects) twisting themselves into pretzels trying to explain why opposing a parade honoring the military is really anti-Trump and not anti-military and looking like fools to the blue-collar Democrats Trump needs voting for him.
Trump may or may not be silly, but he has a genius for making his political opponents look like pathetic clowns.
Trolling, trolling, trolling on the (Potomac) river.
Or it’s sending a message to the military that we don’t care that you have a mission to protect the nation, we want you to spend weeks marching around practicing so you can prance like little poodles for the circus.
Our military is utilitarian, not frilly.
I like local parades, even city parades, where the military comes along and as a politically neutral participant lends its presence to a joyous occasion, like Independence day.
I’m very skeptical of politicizing our military by using a parade to bolster support for one political party. A politicized military is a danger to the republic, not because they will start shooting at people on the other side, but because it will cause the people to lose respect for it.
I think it is absolutely vital to our national security that the military retain its apolitical ethic. Now, if only the FBI could. . .
Actually, the tradition for parades and mass gatherings is for them to be civilian, not martial in nature. Pussy hats follow in the long American tradition of people expression their right to peacefully assemble and petition their government.
That tradition is much stronger then having gigantic a military parade through the streets of Washington just because the President wants one.
Overtime policing and park service, infrastructure for roping off DC…. the Wapo reported that the Gulf War parade in 1991 cost $8 million, which would be over $14 million now. So slightly more than the cost of gas and shoe polish.
Also the cost of transporting military equipment. Trump wants tanks, which means transporting those tanks, which is a big operation.
A-10 and high speed don’t exactly go together. :) The best fly-bys aren’t always the fast ones anyway. Seriously, the best one I ever saw was a tanker (either a KC-10 or KC-135, I don’t recall which, might have been an RC-10 now that I think about it) which was barely flying above a stall. The pilot had the nose way up flying at an insane angle of attack and the engines full throttle just to keep it in the air. This giant plane just hung there over the cadet area until the pilot dropped the nose and it took off like a bat out of Hell.
As far as the parade goes, my squadron marched in Clinton’s inauguration parade back in ’93. I agree we don’t need to brag or spend the money, but it is kinda fun to do.
The entirety of the D&C manual and the existence of multiple ceremonial units disagree.
There is an entire division with a corresponding base in arlington VA dedicated to dancing around like ponies, and they have actual ponies too.
And honestly marching around a parade field is a helluva lot better than say digging the recyclables out of 2 week old trash, or scraping the moss out from between the bricks in the motor pool paving (both of which are actual duties I have actually had). Lets not pretend the opportunity cost on the soldiers time is necessarily fulfilling or enjoyable.
Then why the dress uniforms?
And repairing the roads destroyed by the tanks.
The chicks go wild over them. (Are we allowed to say -or even think – that anymore?)
Sounds like Pre-Rape.