Perhaps the best thing that could be said about President Donald Trump’s military/birthday/“Look at me I’m president” parade was that it was kinda … cute.
Surreal, sure. Problematic, sure. But in that special first moment when you’re exposed to the “whaaa?” of it all, it still kinda makes you chuckle. It’s that painfully cute image some of us may never be able to unsee of Our President standing waaaaaay up there behind his bullet-proof glass shield, twin tanks positioned strategically below the podium in front of the specially designed army-green stage. Almost like the Great and Powerful Oz, except … well … we can see him.
Which, of course, was always the point. Because that has always been the point of Trump; from way back long before he became president up through the day, months and years of horror that he has inflicted upon his own country up until now, it seems all Trump has ever wanted is to be seen. But not seen like you and me. No, Trump’s insistence on pomp and circumstance suggests he want to be seen in a way that you can never forget and never look away from, must never look away from.
If a parade marches in the forest, does it really make a sound?
Which would explain the parade, right? This parade, which he has been dying to have ever since his first term in office, when the counsel of saner minds managed to talk him down. But not this time, not when the saner minds have all been kicked to the curb.
This time, Trump insisted on his parade, and he got it. Because, being the master of marketing that he is, Our President just had that gut feeling that there were very few among us who could resist the temptation to spend hours of our Saturday watching Trump and tanks and … more tanks and … tanks. And of course soldiers (to go with the tanks), and military planes doing flyovers (flying over all those tanks).
Soooooo … have you by any chance seen any photos of the parade?
Because … wow. You may recall the predictions that this parade would draw close to 200,000 wildly cheering attendees (who, presumably, just wouldn’t be able to get enough of those tanks). But instead, the Big Beautiful Event looked more like those photos of Trump’s first term inauguration in January 2017, when he claimed the National Mall was packed with his supporters when, in actual fact, it was pretty much tumbleweeds ― at least in comparison to just about every other presidential inauguration in modern history. And as is his tendency, Trump again tried to insist on Saturday that there were thousands, no, millions, no, billions! Of fans who came to his Saturday birthday party parade.
Umm … no. Sorry. Uh-uh. Nope.
Now that’s a crowd … at No Kings Day protests
You know what? Maybe Trump got his meager crowd size confused with the No Kings Day protest crowds that were erupting not just all around the country, but around the entire world. Estimates of total crowd participation for No Kings Day events ranged from 5 million, reported by Katie Couric Media on her Instagram, to a high of 12.1 million, according to the Alt National Park Service, which describes itself on its Facebook page this way: “The official ‘Resistance’ team of the U.S. National Park Service. Our mission is to stand up for the National Park Service to help protect and preserve the environment for present and future generations.”
You may recall it was the actual National Park Service that released all official crowd estimates until there was a controversy surrounding the Park Service official crowd count at the Million Man March in 1995.
With numbers so large and no official counter, we may never get the actual complete count, at least not for a while. But one thing even more recognized media sources seem to agree on is that there were indeed millions who turned out to support No Kings Day. Not hundreds, and not thousands. Millions.
Whereas Trump’s “Happy Birthday To Me Spectacular” couldn’t even attract one quarter of one million. From the Associated Press:
“At times, Trump stood and saluted as troops marched past the reviewing stand. But attendance appeared to fall far short of early predictions that as many as 200,000 people would attend the festival and parade. There were large gaps between viewers near the Washington Monument on a day when steamy weather and the threat of thunderstorms could have dampened turnout.”
Washington, D.C. weather didn’t stop these folks
So let’s discuss that.
Weather doesn’t seem to have deterred the people who showed up at more than 2,000 well-organized and largely peaceful anti-Trump protests all around the world, which did not, somehow, miraculously, manage to have perfect weather. Because that would really be impressive, and might even suggest those organizers had a direct line to The Big Guy Upstairs to be able to pull that one off.
OK. I’ll dial down on the snark for a moment, because it matters that we take a moment to consider what all of this means, or could mean.
Keep in mind that there were also global protests against the sort of police brutality that took the life of George Floyd, who was killed by an out-of-control police officer on May 25, 2020. Those protests that also took place all around the world, encompassing multiple races, ethnicities and nationalities, were recorded as the largest civil rights protest in history.
And while it is certainly true that the sort of systemic change required to reverse the mindset that tolerates police brutality can take years of non-stop organizing and work, it nevertheless needs to be noted that the sort of change being sought by No Kings Day protesters rarely happens quickly, and it rarely ― if ever ― happens after one day of protest, no matter how many millions show up.
The bad news for US
So first, the bad news: Trump is still our elected president, and he’s going to be president until 2028, making policy that seems programmed to ruin the country he was elected to lead. And ― more bad news ― we don’t have a lot of time to turn this thing around.
The good news? All of us are still here today, will be here tomorrow, and next week, and next month, and throughout the end of the year. And if we keep turning up this heat, showing up and showing out, and channeling that energy toward saving and reclaiming our democracy for future generations who will also hopefully learn from the mistakes and missteps that we have made so that they will never be repeated?
If we can do that, then we just might win.
Free Press contributing columnist Keith A. Owens is a local writer and co-founder of Detroit Stories Quarterly and the We Are Speaking Substack newsletter and podcast. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters, and we may publish it online and in print.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Between ‘No Kings’ protests and Trump’s DC parade, this one was bigger | Opinion
Reporting by Keith A. Owens / Detroit Free Press
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