It’s Trump’s Party and He’ll Whine If He Wants To

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Rain on this parade

DONALD TRUMP WILL preside over a military parade in Washington, D.C. this Saturday featuring two companies of M1 Abrams tanks en promenade on Constitution Avenue. While it’s billed as a celebration of the United States Army’s 250th birthday plus Flag Day, the former isn’t true, and the latter is so trivial that federal workers don’t get the day off. Conveniently, June 14 is also Trump’s birthday, which increasingly feels like the real reason for the pageantry; he often mentions the happy coincidence immediately after stating the celebration’s official pretext.

Democrats, local officials concerned about the durability of the city’s roads, and Americans more generally who don’t like authoritarian agitprop are concerned and skeptical. The parade is also going to be expensive,¹ costing taxpayers up to $45 million, according to an Army spokesperson.

And notwithstanding the cost and the logistical complexity of the undertaking, most Republican senators don’t plan to attend. A survey of Senate Republicans by Scripps News revealed that at least 41 of the 53 Republicans in the upper chamber are skipping the parade. Another nine declined to comment while two were undecided.² Just one, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), confirmed he’ll be in attendance. Ted Cruz told me he’d be back in Texas with his family, but added that “parades are wonderful” when I asked him about the optics of festivities.

At least one Republican senator is bothered enough by the whole thing that he made his criticisms public, suggesting Saturday’s event could give the impression that the current administration is seeking to emulate anti-American autocratic regimes.