For Trump, the military is just another extra in his reality show presidency
The military is now just another television-friendly prop for whatever Trump wants to promote, which is usually Trump himself.
Trump's 79th birthday — it's the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army! Really! We swear! — on Saturday will feature a $45 million tank parade and fighter jet flyover in Washington, D.C.
The weather forecast for D.C. calls for showers, making it rain on his reign parade, which, of course, is bad television. Trump's chartreuse cotton-candy hairstyle could collapse like a soufflé, for example. He was afraid that it would happen in France at a D-Day event in 2020. He canceled.
Meanwhile, Trump's war gaming has spread to Los Angeles, where, against the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, he called in 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines. There will be more cities, too, so watch for troops on Union Square.
That'll help San Francisco tourism.
Trump's obsession with the military-as-extras-in-a-reality-show approach is not only lousy politics, it's antithetical to the American nonpartisan approach to its military.
According to historian Michael Beschloss, the late president and former Gen. Dwight Eisenhower felt that a military parade like one would see in totalitarian countries '(imitating) what the Soviets are doing in Red Square would make us look weak.'
Yet another reason to like Ike, a sensible Republican president who knew the power of military imagery.
Trump's sham-handed response to the Los Angeles protests against immigration raids has sent America reeling. While there certainly has been property damage in L.A., most Angelenos are going about their business at brunch, hardly the urban hellscape so ably exploited by the president's media handmaidens.
When Trump marched over to Washington's Lafayette Square in 2020 and held up a bible in front of a church like some '700 Club' pitchman, he asked/ordered Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley to accompany him.
Later, Milley said he thought it was terrible that he did that, saying Trump was a 'wannabe dictator' and a 'fascist to the core.'
Wannabe?
For example, Trump installed as secretary of defense a Fox News talking head/blowhard, Pete Hegseth, who is more than willing not to stand up to the president, unlike former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who managed to wave off 47's fascist impulses.
Esper said, 'We reached that point in the conversation where (Trump) looked frankly at Gen. Milley and said, 'Can't you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?''
Um, no. No, we can't.
Now there is no Milley or Esper at the table. Just Pete's tats.
Sen. Alex Padilla was forcibly shown the door on Thursday during a press conference featuring cosplaying Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose previous experience was being governor of a state with a population slightly more than San Francisco.
Padilla was handcuffed and hustled out of the news conference after saying to Noem, 'You insist on exaggerating.'
Padilla may find himself the latest star of the L.A. ICE Raids News Cycle, after Gov. Gavin Newsom had his 15 minutes of fame on Tuesday.
At this point, it's not at all difficult to imagine Trump wearing a gold-epaulette uniform, resplendent with medals more appropriate for the Chilean Pinochet regime than the American presidency.
Why not throw his Ceaușescu -aspirational sons into uniforms as well? After all, they haven't managed to channel their patriotic juices into actually going in the military, either. That's for the little people. Get the Proud Boys into some snappy military blues, too. They're now Trump J6 heroes.
That insurrection was OK. No need to bring in the National Guard or the Marines. It was in the service of Trump, not democracy, which is all that matters now.
Other than damaging D.C.'s boulevards with tank treads and sending the Marines over the Grapevine, perhaps the clearest sign that Trump's military fetish has crossed the line is his performance at the Fort Bragg Army base, where Military.com reported that a unit-level message said there were to be 'no fat soldiers … If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration and they don't want to be in the audience, then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out.'
Since norms are now antiquarian afterthoughts, do all soldiers have the choice going forward, or is this just a trial run for a quasi-Nuremberg rally?
My guess is that President Joe Biden placed no such restrictions when he addressed troops. Oh, and his son Beau was an Army Reserve major.
That separation of civilian and military is so 2024.
Another Trump fetish is his demand that Army bases revert to their Confederate hero names, like Robert E. Lee.
Memo to Trump: They put Arlington National Cemetery in Lee's front yard, as a warning to future traitors.
One would think that leading an armed rebellion against the U.S. government and President Abraham Lincoln, the first GOP president, might be disqualifying for a military base name.
Other than virtual signaling to racists, it's just another day in the conundrum Trump has created for the military.
The tanks will roll by on Saturday, chewing up the streets and delighting our juvenile president. But the U.S. Constitution has tread marks on it already.
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