Trump’s ostentatious vanity parade

One might be inclined to call it megalomania on the march. Or perhaps an atrocious acknowledgement of America’s authoritarian advance. Or maybe just perversity on parade.

However one chooses to describe it, in pithy alliterative terms or otherwise, the military spectacle U.S. President Donald Trump is throwing for himself this weekend in Washington, D.C. is nothing more or less than an ego-driven obscenity.

The event, which is expected to include 6,600 armed forces personnel, 150 tanks, artillery and other fighting machines, and more than 50 aircraft, will wend its way along the north side of the National Mall early Saturday evening. It is being touted by the Trump administration as a commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the formal establishment of the U.S. Army.

Those same officials insist the fact the parade is taking place on Trump’s 79th birthday is mere coincidence, and that this ostentatious display of military might — reportedly at a cost approaching US$45 million — is most definitely not the prideful president’s taxpayer-funded birthday present to himself.

A quick examination of this so-called anniversary celebration, however, suggests the pricey pageantry is likely more about the man than the armed forces institution. Plans to mark the army’s 250th birthday have been in the works for a couple of years, but the massive parade was only added earlier this year, after Trump’s return to the White House.

His fascination with public displays of military might is well documented — he called the parade he witnessed during a 2017 state visit to China “magnificent,” and described the Bastille Day event he observed the same year in Paris, which included a fighter-jet flyover complete with red/white/blue smoke trails, as “one of the greatest parades” he’d ever seen.

Trump was determined to have a parade of his own during his first term, but experienced military minds dissuaded him from such a gratuitous display. This time around, surrounded only by loyalists and lackeys, there is no such discouragement when Trump’s vanity is aroused.

Saturday’s shameful stroking of the presidential ego will serve as the latest reminder of the president’s obvious intention to style himself less as an elected democratic leader and more as an autocrat akin to the dictators — Putin, Xi and the like — he has openly admired.

“There’s definitely a correlation between putting on a military parade and authoritarian regimes,” said Markus Schiller, CEO of the German-based aerospace and security consultancy ST Analytics. “These parades are about sending a message to other countries and also to domestic political rivals.”

Coming, as it does, at the end a week in which Trump dispatched National Guard and U.S. Marine troops to Los Angeles — against the wishes of California’s governor and L.A.’s mayor — to quell protests against his administration’s deportation-focused raids and roundups, the parade is a very public, exceedingly explicit declaration that this president views America’s military as a force whose duty is to him alone, and whose considerable might can be directed toward anything that resists Trump’s increasingly authoritarian will.

When asked about his decision to send troops to California, Trump responded, “We are going to have troops everywhere” that protests against his government arise.

And should someone have the temerity to protest the president’s repugnantly self-aggrandizing misuse of military machinery, the message is clear: “They will be met with very big force. … I haven’t heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very great force.”

Don’t think of it as a parade, or even a pointless presidential birthday vulgarity.

Think of it as the latest warning of American democracy’s imminent demise.