Salute to Trump
Trump’s military salute to himself for his birthday was a complete flop. It was a fascist display, boring, and sparsely attended by a listless crowd. Hardly anybody showed up (generous estimates are 10,000, nowhere near the 250,000 MAGAs he believed were going to attend). Those who did show up looked pretty weary, including the service members who were forced to have to participate. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat there, yawned and wondered where his soul went. Pete Hegseth sat to Trump’s right and was visibly bored. So did Eric and his family who sat behind Trump for awhile. His very young daughter was on his lap playing with an American flag. She had it in her mouth. Poor optics. He must have paid Melania pretty good to get her to show up and look pretty. Walt Nauta sat behind him, his faithful valet from Mar-a-Lago who’d be in jail right now for moving classified documents for Trump if it weren’t for the fact that his boss is a mob boss. He’s still tying Trump’s ties for him. He could be Trump’s only friend. For most of the parade, Trump’s family and Republican members of Congress didn’t want to have much to do with it. They were either no-shows or those who did show up were careful not to post selfies because they were embarrassed to be there. The whole affair fell flat. America looked terribly weak and pathetic to the rest of the world — all of that power juxtaposed with empty bleachers, listless attendants and participants, and a president who fell asleep in his chair.
Soldiers rebelled by not marching in formation. They just walked naturally. At one point they had to march to the anti-war song, Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Trump is too stupid to know what that song means. Bad optics.
“That army parade was straight outta Spinal Tap.” — George Takei
At the same time that the parade was happening, over 13 million people were marching in every state in the No Kings march. He’s humiliated and furious now and is going to retaliate. He put out a warning that he will come down even harder in blue cities by giving ICE even more power. A couple of days ago he caved and said he wanted ICE to lay off of restaurant, hotel, and farm workers after realizing the economic damage he was causing, so he backed off. But that was only for a couple of days. He switched strategies again. Bottom line is that ICE will be out there in bigger numbers committing horrendous acts against our fellow human beings while anti-Trump people continue to use their bodies, mouths, and cell phones to try and stop them.
Things are bad but for those who marched in protests, they’re not that bad because: Participants realized that by showing up in big numbers they saw that they were not alone, that there are way more of us than there are of them, and there is a lot of power in solidarity.
Attendants at the No Kings protests were predominately white folks of all ages. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. YES! The Black community is cheering everybody on, but they realize that there presence would take the whole movement into a new, much more violent direction and they don’t want to do that. Plus they’re tired. They’ve been doing this for generations. It’s our turn now.
The media didn’t carry the No Kings marches as its own phenomena. It was history in the making but the media didn’t treat it as such. They were kind of ho-hum about it as if it were just another protest.
Before the parade and protests began, a MAGA assassinated two Democratic members of the state legislature in Minnesota, in their homes. The assassin knocked on the doors of the victims dressed as a police man, then opened fire. State rep Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were killed. State senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were both shot multiple times in their home, too, but survived. The Republicans pretty much ignored the travesty except for Senator Mike Lee from Utah. He posted a photo of the assailant at one of the victim’s doors with the caption “Nightmare on Waltz Street,” to make a dig at governor Tim Walz. If these were normal times, he’d be expelled from Congress for an act like that, but this is Trump’s America and members of Congress can cheer the deaths of each other on like it was nothing.
The attacks were politically motivated. The shooter was planning on killing 70 more Democrats according to the manifesto he left in his car.
The Second Amendment nuts didn’t hold their own protest to protest the No Kings protest. Why not? They’re always saying that they need their guns to use against the government if the government comes after them. They NEED those guns to shoot at the government. Where are they? The government is here.
Trump wanted a parade on his birthday during his last administration, too but was vetoed by Congress; when it was actually functioning. This obsession of wanting to be honored by the military is strange because he never served. Nobody in his family did. He dodged the draft a number of times. He’s quoted as saying that anyone that serves in the military are suckers and losers. He made a listless speech at his parade and got no reaction from the crowd. Then everybody sang “Happy Birthday” because they had to.
Here he has wanted a parade in his honor and when he got it he didn’t even enjoy it. It was the most humiliating day of his life. He pouted and slept through the whole thing.
Yesterday’s parade was a bomb and a huge waste of money. It looked bad on many levels. It did not achieve its goal of honoring the military. The opposite happened — they looked ill prepared and sloppy, just like their commander in chief.
3.5 % of population showed up for No Kings day. That is huge. People made history and marked time. From now on things will be grouped as before and after the No Kings March. Success!
