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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
gag
Well, so much for civilian control of the military.
No. It would be an unlawful order. It is against the law for the military to take part in political activities in a partisan manner. Or if it isn’t it should be. It isn’t right.
I put this in the category of flag burning. I have never seen Americans clamoring to burn the flag. It’s only ever been a few nuts doing that here and there. But making flag burning illegal changes the character of flag burning from something nuts do to something Americans who are very jealous of power might do. The day they outlaw flag burning is the day I become a flag burner.
Likewise, having this parade at this point, no matter how innocently intended, encourages people to react politically rather than for love of country.
I see this as another unforced error, similar to the NFL kneeling issue. It was a stupid stunt already dying out when Trump decided to get involved and poured gasoline on the dying embers.
We can’t and shouldn’t require people to love the country or respect the military. The military protects us all and it is that trust from the people that gives the military its strength. If we destroy that trust by injecting stupid political stunts and demand people to take sides, the military will lose and both political parties will get a brief surge of support that will die out once the next issue comes up. But the trust of the military will be stained.
If a Commander-in-Chief ordering the military to march was a lawful order in any other era, it remains a lawful order today unless the Constitution has been amended to preclude it.
You seem to think that a parade would confirm people’s worst fears; you’re too late, they self-confirmed those fears long ago. People are going to believe what they want to. If you make choices based on what people might think, when you react in fear of their fear, you let them drive.
I’ve no idea whether a military parade would be a net gain or a net loss, or whether there’s even going to be a parade: Trump has a tendency to throw up a thousand trial balloons, watch people react, and make decisions based in part on that new data. And he gets to. Because he is the President of the United States and the Commander in Chief of the United States Military.
No. It’s the context of the order that matters.
Now I understand. It’s blind disdain for Trump that makes the difference. That excuses anything!
The Washington Post March was our go-to marching song in high school band, but I had no idea what the Washington Post was in HS. Then I subscribed to it for about for about 30 years, but canned it a couple years ago.