(C) Common Dreams
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Trump’s Military Parade Was a Pathetic Event for a Pathetic President [1]
['Malcolm Ferguson', 'Greg Sargent', 'Timothy Noah', 'Edith Olmsted']
Date: 2025-06-15
Three dozen horses, 28 Abrams tanks, 6,700 soldiers, and millions of taxpayer dollars later, and Donald Trump’s military birthday parade was still a flop at best.
A crowd that was well under the administration’s projected 200,000 peppered the National Mall Saturday in a festival-style event featuring Army info sessions, military fitness challenges, weapons exhibits, and other activities prior to the parade. Military members spoke onstage the entire time to a sparse audience, as most of the attendees perused the various offerings, hoisting their children up into the massive tanks and turrets sitting on the mall for pictures.
There was a sense of giddy satisfaction in the air as the parade’s 6 p.m. start time approached. It was the same feeling I noticed during inauguration weekend: a crowd that felt victorious and vindicated, and knew it was among friends. People rushed to the front of the route as the parade began and expressed genuine awe and joy as Black Hawk helicopters, Howitzers, and other heavy-duty war machinery trudged down Constitution Avenue.
But the parade itself was quite boring, save for those few movements. It was generally very quiet—so quiet you could clearly hear the creaks and squeaks of the armored vehicles—with intermittent music that was constantly being lowered so that the parade narrator could announce each battalion. Weak chants of “USA, USA” popped up every 10 minutes or so. And the majority of the parade was just soldiers walking by—not even marching in step with each other—in military garb from wars past. Children grew weary in the humidity, as did some adults. One man wearing an Infowars.com shirt kept yelling, “Bring out the tanks!!” and complained that “people got no energy out here.” Another started scrolling on TikTok. There were large cheers for West Point and some confused murmurs for the Boston Dynamics robot dogs.
Armored vehicles and infantry soldiers march during the Army 250th Anniversary Parade, which coincided with Trump’s birthday, in Washington, D.C., on June 14. ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Thousands of people march during the “No Kings” protest in opposition to Donald Trump’s presidency on the day of the military parade, June 14, in New York. Alex Kent/Getty Images
The event didn’t truly begin to feel electric until the parade ended and Trump and JD Vance spoke. Crowds of people hurried to the other side of the mall to catch just a glimpse of Trump as he spoke behind a humongous piece of glass hundreds of yards away for about seven minutes. The finale featured massive fireworks and more music, as people linked arms and swayed while they sang, “I’m Proud to Be an American.”
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[1] Url:
https://newrepublic.com/article/196850/trump-birthday-military-parade-pathetic
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