America deserves this military parade

Trump's party is jingoistic, expensive, shoddily planned, self-serving, smacking of authoritarianism, and basically right for the state of the American empire

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images, AP Photo, str33tcat/iStock)

Giddy with an enthusiasm that resembles nothing so much as a small child breathlessly describing his birthday party plans, President Trump is finally getting something of the military parade he has long desired. Independence Day celebrations in Washington this year will layer over traditional festivities a campaign-style presidential address, Air Force flyovers, extra fireworks, VIP seating for GOP donors, and — most controversially — tanks. The whole shebang will run us unknown millions of dollars, and that's excluding any costs incurred if the heavy military equipment wreaks havoc on local infrastructure. Trump, predictably, insists the price is "very little compared to what it is worth," because we "own the tanks and all"!

Many are unconvinced of the value of the affair. Trump's subsumption of July 4th is a "misuse of the military as props for his own partisan ends and personal glorification," griped The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin. He is "raiding of the Treasury for his personal aggrandizement," giving "preferential treatment for rich toadies," and, crucially, "misconstruing ... American traditions ... to transform a holiday about the greatest experiment in civilian self-government into a garish military Mardi Gras."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.