parading around

Donald Trump apparently wants to put on a huge military parade. At Instapundit, Ed Driscoll gleefully calls the parade the "Greatest Troll Ever." According to this Powerline Blog post, Trump was inspired by the Bastille Day parade he witnessed while in France, standing with President Macron. The Powerline post suggests that a major reason why Trump is doing this is explicitly to troll liberals. If that's the case, (1) it's already working, as I'm seeing "For fuck's sake!" posts popping up in the liberal blogosphere, and (2) I personally think it's a monumental waste to put on such a show, especially if trolling is its fundamental purpose.

The blog post claims:

President Trump has a unique ability to make liberal heads explode. You can see this one coming: libs will ramp up their use of the F-word, while normal Americans will wonder what is wrong with a parade[.]

This may be correct, regarding exploding liberal heads and F-words, and I've already admitted I'm probably not in touch with "normal Americans." But I live just across the DMZ from a country that loves huge displays of military might, and I can't get over the idea that such dick-waving is unseemly. Then again, as the blog post points out, France did it:

But wait! Aren’t the French sophisticated Europeans of the sort that liberals want the U.S. to emulate? If they can have a military parade, why can’t we? No doubt liberals will come up with an answer to that question; it will be entertaining to see what it is. As Steve likes to say, get out the popcorn!

Sigh...

If the parade is some form of psy-ops by Trump, a kind of Cylon-detector test, then I suppose I can understand its rationale. At the same time, I can't help rebelling against the notion of much too vulgar a display of power. To be clear, I'm not against military pageantry in theory; smaller-scale, local displays are fine by me. But if what Trump is envisioning is as grandiose and crass as one of his tacky hotels, then... no. Just no.