The Patriot Post® · Trump's Parade 'Marching Orders'...
From today’s “Trump Is Hitler!” Leftmedia news dump, comes the latest “evidence” that President Donald Trump must be a totalitarian dictator. Seems he has proposed a military parade in Washington to honor our active duty military personnel and veterans – something like the Bastille Day parade in Paris. He has proposed to have the event on a patriotic occasion, perhaps Veterans Day — the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. Of course, the WaPo daily tabloid rained on Trump’s parade, insisting should be widely condemned as a fascist power display.
A couple observations from here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where we have one the longest-running Armed Forces Day parades in the nation…
First, as we alluded, many on the Left will reflexively oppose this because it’s Trump’s idea. And furthermore, they’ll liken him to Hitler and every other dictator in history who’s held a parade as a show of strength. Indeed, a handful of these rabid leftists promise to lay on the street in front of any tanks, hoping to evoke imagery from the Chinese massacre of students at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
It’s true that Trump’s sometimes authoritarian rhetoric certainly plays into this MSM fabrication, but that is where the comparison ends. There is plenty of precedent for American military parades, though it would be difficult to justify the expense while critical military needs are unmet.
Second, Trump thinks big, and he clearly honors our warfighters at every opportunity. In fact, he has a history of honoring them for many years. In 1995 Trump saved New York City’s Nation’s Parade, where, according to UPI, “The crowd cheered as 25,000 veterans marched … marking the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II.” But “the parade would not have been a success if it hadn’t been for real estate developer Donald Trump, who contributed $200,000 and raised another $300,000.”
Asked this week about the parade plans, Secretary of Defense James Mattis replied: “I think we’re all aware in this country of the President’s affection and respect for the military. We’ve been putting together some options. We’ll send them up to the White House for a decision. The President’s respect, his fondness for the military, I think, is reflected in him asking for these options.”
Now however, with Democrats pitching a fit over not getting a deal to give citizenship to illegal aliens, their most promising future voter constituency, a large event honoring our military personnel and veterans, for whom most liberals harbor contempt, will be target.
Never mind that in 2014, Demo Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer called on the Department of Defense to support a huge military parade in New York. What, CNN didn’t remind you of that?
As if the celebrity athlete disrespect for our flag and all who have died under it were not sufficient representation of leftist military loathing, consider the case this past week, when a California teacher ridiculed a student for wearing a shirt with a Marine emblem. That arrogant bastard then went on a rant, insisting military personnel are “Dumb s—ts. They’re not high-level thinkers. They’re not academic people. They’re not intellectual people. They’re the freaking lowest of our low.”
When Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly was asked about those defamatory remarks, he fittingly replied, “I think the guy ought to go to hell. I hope he enjoys the liberties … we have fought for.” (Recall that Gen. Kelly is a retired Marine four-star, whose Marine son was killed in Afghanistan.)
Fellow Tennessean David French, a writer for National Review and an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, concluded: “In the more than 16 years since 9/11 our military has 1) Toppled the Taliban. 2) Toppled Saddam. 3) Defeated the follow-on AQI insurgency. 4) Defeated the ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria. 5) Endured years of grinding deployments while fighting with honor. I’m fine with a parade.” Indeed, if anyone’s earned it, it’s our brave Armed Forces Patriots.
(Updated.)