The president has called a big military parade this weekend in Washington to celebrate the Army’s 250th anniversary. It is also the president’s 79th birthday, and he enjoys parades.
Early plans speak of 6,600 soldiers across at least 11 divisions; 150 military vehicles, including 26 M1 Abrams tanks and 27 Bradley Fighting Vehicles. There will be aircraft and howitzers. It all sounds showy, militaristic and braggadocious, the kind of thing the Soviet Union did in its May Day parades, and North Korea still does.
We don’t do that. We don’t have big military parades with shining, gleaming weapons driven through the streets.
Sometimes I wonder of the people around the president: Do they know we don’t do this? Have they read any history? Are they like Silicon Valley tech bros who think history started with them?
Maybe they’re thinking that in a world full of danger it’s good to let Iran and China and the rest know what we’ve got, how our missiles gleam and our soldiers march. But that is just another form of never having read a book. If they had they’d know not only that this isn’t how we do it, but also that we don’t do it that way for a reason.
Trumpism can be seen as a giant attempt to amputate the highest aspirations of the human spirit and to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 