New Republic - Three dozen horses, 28 Abrams tanks, 6,700 soldiers, and millions of taxpayer dollars later, and Donald Trump’s military birthday parade was still a flop at best.
A crowd that was well under the administration’s projected 200,000 peppered the National Mall Saturday in a festival style event featuring Army info sessions, military fitness challenges, weapons exhibits, and other activities prior to the parade. Military members spoke on stage the entire time to a sparse audience, as most of the attendees perused the various offerings, hoisting their children up into the massive tanks and turrets sitting on the mall for pictures.
There was a sense of giddy satisfaction in the air as the parade’s 6:00 p.m. start time approached. It was the same feeling I noticed during inauguration weekend: A crowd that felt victorious and vindicated, and knew it was among friends. People rushed to the front of the route as the parade began and expressed genuine awe and joy as Blackhawk helicopters, Howitzers, and other heavy duty war machinery trudged down Constitution Avenue.
But the parade itself was quite boring, save for those few movements. It was generally very quiet—so quiet you could clearly hear the creaks and squeaks of the armored vehicles—with intermittent music that was constantly being lowered so that the parade narrator could announce each battalion. Weak chants of “USA, USA” popped up every 10 minutes or so. And the majority of the parade was just soldiers walking by—not even marching in step with each other—in military garb from wars past. Children grew weary in the humidity, as did some adults. One man wearing an Infowars.com shirt kept yelling “bring out the tanks!!” and complained that “people got no energy out here.” Another started scrolling on TikTok. There were large cheers for West Point and some confused murmurs for the Boston Dynamics robot dogs.
Borowitz Report - Here’s how John Ismay of the New York Times described what will go down in history as the most tedious military parade ever:
“Overall this was a pretty listless and low-energy parade and crowd. People wearing Trump paraphernalia far outnumbered those wearing Army hats and shirts from what I could see. There were no speakers along the parade route, so spectators couldn’t hear whatever was being broadcast by the announcers closer to the reviewing stand.”
It was an excruciatingly boring slog. Melania fell asleep. Shit, Trump fell asleep. You know you’ve created a snooze fest when the most alert-looking dude in the audience is Pete Hegseth.
Maybe next time Trump wants to celebrate himself with an ostentatious display of military hardware, he should hire a consultant who knows how to produce this kind of show
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