Trump’s Parade: Greatest Troll Ever? [with comment by Paul]

What a great headline: Trump’s ‘marching orders’ to the Pentagon: Plan a grand military parade. It is almost too good to be true:

President Donald Trump’s vision of soldiers marching and tanks rolling down the boulevards of Washington is moving closer to reality in the Pentagon and White House, where officials say they have begun to plan a grand military parade later this year showcasing the might of America’s armed forces.

Trump has long mused publicly and privately about wanting such a parade, but a Jan. 18 meeting between Trump and top generals in the Pentagon’s tank — a room reserved for top-secret discussions — marked a tipping point, according to two officials briefed on the planning.

Surrounded by the military’s highest-ranking officials, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, Trump’s seemingly abstract desire for a parade was suddenly heard as a presidential directive, the officials said.

“The marching orders were: I want a parade like the one in France,” said a military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “This is being worked at the highest levels of the military.”

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:

A date has not been selected, although officials said Trump would like to tie the parade to a patriotic holiday.

Of course he would! That only makes it worse, for the Left. While liberals may not be traitors, as the president suggested in a moment of levity, most of them are not very patriotic. So a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, reminiscent of the Grand Review of the Armies at the end of the Civil War, will send liberals into a tizzy that the rest of us can enjoy.

Where did Trump get the idea of a military parade? From France:

The inspiration for Trump’s push is last year’s Bastille Day celebration in Paris, which the president attended as a guest of French President Emmanuel Macron. Trump was awe-struck by the tableau of uniformed French troops marching down Avenue des Champs-Élysées with military tanks, armored vehicles, gun trucks and carriers — complete with F-16 fighter jets flying over the Arc de Triomphe and painting the sky with streaks of blue, white and red smoke.

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!

PAUL ADDS: Many years ago, we were in Paris on Bastille Day. Our hotel was just off the Champs Elysee.

We walked to the Champs and found a great spot from which to watch the parade. I’m not a big parade fan, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. And, of course, my young daughters got a huge kick out of it.

I can understand why Trump, having seen the Paris parade, wants to have one here. Why not?

The Washington Post comes up with various distinctions between the parade Trump might stage here and the one Paris puts on annually. The Post’s designated killjoy, Nick Noack, says “a military parade in Washington might strike many foreign observers as an odd timing. Why now?”

To which, again, I say “why not now?” Also, who gives a damn how the parade might strike many foreign observers? I think it will strike most patriotic Americans as just fine, and Americans the ages of my daughters when we saw the Bastille Day parade as better than fine.

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