In what Trump has referred to as a “unforgettable” celebration and detractors have referred to as an expensive homage to the “egoist-in-chief,” tanks and other armored military vehicles thundered through the streets of Washington, DC, on Saturday.
Trump described the event as a long-awaited moment in his remarks following the hour-long procession, which sliced through a warm evening sprinkled with rains.
“Every other nation rejoices in its successes. He said to the sparsely populated National Mall, “It’s about time America did, too.”
He declared, “That’s what we’re doing tonight.”
The only official to recognize the two birthdays was Vice President JD Vance, who introduced the president at the conclusion of the procession.
Naturally, June 14th is the army’s birthday. The president of the United States’ birthday is today, of course,” he continued. “Mr. President, happy birthday.”
The overlapping dates conveyed a troubling message to critics.
Away from the celebrations, among about 100 protesters at Logan Circle in Washington, DC, Terry Mahoney, a 55-year-old Marine veteran, described the parade as “dictator behavior”.
Since going to a Bastille Day celebration in Paris in 2017, Trump has pushed for a large military parade, but during his first term, defense chiefs resisted.
In an unprecedented display of military power since the US marked the conclusion of the Gulf War in 1991, Obama dispatched 28 Abrams tanks, a horde of armored vehicles, cavalry, military planes, and helicopters, both contemporary and vintage, to the US capital this time.
From the Army’s founding in 1775 through World War II, the Vietnam War, and the so-called “war on terror,” spectators flocked along Constitution Avenue, which runs between the White House and the US Capitol.
The crowd, studded with red Make America Great Again (MAGA) hats, cheered Trump’s arrival and let out a few jeers. It seems that fewer people showed there than the roughly 200,000 that the military had predicted.
Trump’s birthday and the Army celebration were two different things to Freddie Delacruz, a 63-year-old US Army veteran who traveled from North Carolina for the march.
Protesting is patriotic:
The military spectacle highlighted a more concerning tendency, according to Anahi Rivas-Rodriguez, a 24-year-old from McAllen, Texas, who claimed that Trump’s strict immigration policies blended with the nation’s military power.
Many of the individuals in my life are afraid. Rivas-Rodriguez, who joined a group of demonstrators walking in front of the White House, declared, “We do not belong in a fear in America.”
With tears in her eyes, she declared, “I do not support an America that destroys families and targets people because they look Mexican and brown because they look like me.”
No significant disturbances were reported in the US capital on Saturday, with many groups opting to stage protests elsewhere. However, a protest at the US Capitol late on Friday resulted in some 60 arrests.
Despite holding protests in about 2,000 cities nationwide, the organizers of the nationwide “No Kings” protests did not stage an official event in Washington, DC.
Source: Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN and other media outlets
