I Love a Parade

Oh my god I love a parade.

When I was in high school I was a drummer in the marching band. Every few months there would be a parade of some sort, celebrating some such, and I would have to participate. I played the quads; they weigh roughly all the pounds, four drums organized and placed in a configuration perfectly designed to conflagrate back muscles. At the end of the line, after walking three or four miles, all of us covered in Midwestern humidity, we would play one more song and then fuck off for the rest of the day. It was hard, but it was surprisingly fun. Marching band music is loud and up-tempo and you can’t help but swing your hips with a little verve when you’re, well, marching to it.

So fuck yea, parades.

Trump wants to have a big military parade and I am all for it. The staggering lack of self-awareness, general perception, and intelligence it requires to think that fucking stupid idea is a good one is like someone wanting to build Mt. Rushmore today. In fact, I think that should secure Trump a spot on that monument to genocide. It’s the first thing Trump has done, ever, that made me feel unambiguous joy.

Let me explain.

First, there’s no downside. A giant military parade will not hurt anyone. It will hurt America’s image, people have already called it the idea of a two-bit Banana Republic wannabe dictator, but Trump is already called that and America’s image has already hit bottom. It’s even hit bottom in places that already excuse our mass murder across the world! So who gives a fuck?

Second, parades, as already explained, are awesome. The military’s marching band is great, have you ever seen those guys? Incredible. There’s gonna be dancers and all that shit. The whole thing will be tacky, loud, and appeal to the lowest common denominator. Fuck it, put Macy’s Day balloons up and shape them like tanks.

Third, this gives off the exact opposite impression Trump wants it to. A military parade like this is intended to be a testament to glorious leader Trump’s strength, but in reality, it is evidence of his debilitating weakness. To quote Ralph Ellison “Power doesn’t have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.” There are few ways to reveal Trump’s pathetic weakness more effective than Trump himself trying to look strong.

Military parades are a war-time propaganda technique. In small towns, they would be a way to celebrate your friends and family going off to fight a war, or perhaps better put, a way to convince people that it was a good idea for them to do so. If you’re having a big parade, it must be a good thing, right? Military parades are an attempt to convince the people who are fighting for you that they’re winning, not to demonstrate strength. Trump having a military parade is meant to demonstrate to his supporters how fucking great he is, but even his supporters can see through that.

So yes, have a parade. No one need comment. No one should comment. A parade will speak for itself, and, like every time Trump speaks for himself, it will be loud and pathetic and stupid and weak. Trump having a parade is a visual metaphor for the dumb shit he tweets, except, and this is the most important part, people will get paid for it.