https://www.thedailybeast.com/thomas-jefferson-declared-us-independent-of-absolute-despotism-trumps-throwing-himself-a-military-parade?ref=home&fbclid=IwAR3GjpuO9-wIA2q2jIIb7XnfevXdWToBQYFzyTltR0DB45Wh4VnY43iRm_8
"We laugh at Trump. We have to laugh at him to stay sane. This military parade is a joke. This speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Is he kidding? Where Martin Luther King summoned our best angels, that buffoon is going to stand there and give a semi-literate lecture about things he knows nothing about? Maybe he’ll mention “Western liberalism” again, which is clearly to blame for all those junkies in L.A. he told Tucker Carlson about. We laugh, but we also know that this is not very funny at all. The situation is without precedent and it is terrifying. A president who has no personal morality and nothing but contempt for democracy. A Senate Republican leader who cares only about party power. A congressional GOP that will disagree with the president here and there, on tariffs, but on the fundamental crimes he commits on a weekly basis—his abuse of power, his destruction of norms, his bending and breaking of the law—not only turns a blind eye but actively cheers him on. The parade (which now appears to be stationary!) is a joke—but it’s not. Who else has military parades? Yes, France. Hilarious, don’t you think, that conservatives now cite France of all places to defend their actions? The Bastille Day Parade dates to 1880, around the dawn of the rise of Social Darwinism, and when France was still licking its wounds from the Franco-Prussian War and the calamities of the Commune. The Third Republic was on shaky ground. So, voila, a military parade! So France—but among civilized democratic nations, basically only France. Other than France, guess where? The number of military parades has increased dramatically in China under Xi Jinping. Of course it has! He named himself president for life. For a big parade in 2015, nearby factories were shut to ensure that the air would be clear. Dogs, falcons, and monkeys were deployed to scare away birds. Who else loves parades? Vladimir Putin. Obviously. The biggest one every year is held on May 9 to celebrate the victory over the Nazis."
