USA TODAY International Edition
Our view: Not everyone loves Trump’s big military parade
Size matters to Donald Trump. A “big, beautiful, powerful wall.” A “much bigger” and “more powerful” nuclear button. An apocalyptic war “the likes of which the world has never seen.”
Now he wants a military parade — a huge one, no doubt — down Pennsylvania Avenue. America will “have to try to top” what the president witnessed last summer in Paris during that nation’s Bastille Day display of tanks, missiles and marching formations.
Trump’s critics frequently refer to him as a man-child, and the parade idea smacks of the “selfish sevens”: the little boy who sees what someone else has and wants his own, only bigger.
When the president directed the Pentagon to draw up plans for a grand procession through the capital, the White House spun it as a celebration of the troops.
And that’s a nice idea, except there are many ways to achieve this without spending a fortune (the military parade after the Persian Gulf War in 1991 cost $8 million) or tearing up asphalt with Abrams tanks.
One effective method would be for Trump to visit U.S. servicemembers in the war zones where he has sent them into harm’s way. He has yet to do this.
Another method would be to spend the money on improving veterans’ health care, rather than on an expensive martial display.
The United States has sparingly paraded troops and military hardware through Washington or New York, but typically only after winning a war. The Founding Fathers were uncomfortable even with a permanent military, much less a flaunted one. America is more about speaking softly and carrying a big stick.
Unlike the goose-stepping throngs that regularly advance through the streets of Moscow or Pyongyang — North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un threw himself another massive military parade on the eve of the Winter Olympics — the American instinct is to celebrate sacrifice, not prowess. The instinct is to honor citizens who step forward to relinquish, as President Lincoln said at Gettysburg, “the last full measure of devotion.”
Tellingly, many Republicans and military leaders are opposing Trump’s parade plan. Not everyone, it seems, loves a parade. At least not this one.
“Confidence is silent. Insecurities are loud,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., replied when asked about the idea. “When you’re the most powerful nation in all of human history, you don’t have to show it off.”
We couldn’t have said it any better ourselves.