Donald Trump’s idea for a big, beautiful, military parade just like all the other big dictators have, has been going through the standard stages of A Really Bad Idea: Enthusiasm, Disillusionment, Panic, Searching for a scapegoat, Punishing the innocent, and Rewarding the uninvolved, And the best thing that can be said about this whole sad little catastrophically silly idea is that it moved through these phases quite quickly, pulling off the whole panic, scapegoat search, and placing punishment where it doesn’t belong in record time.
That’s right. Using the lie with a double twist and an extra side of hubris, Donald Trump has managed to go straight to “Blame the Democrats” for an idea that was blazingly stupid and clearly bound for failure from day one.
Truthfully, the enthusiasm stage for Trump’s Missiles on Main Street premiere never extended beyond Trump. Even the minions of Fox News found it difficult to work up a lot of cool graphics and awesome catchphrases that went well with tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, so disillusionment was baked into this little project from day one. But, as with all bad ideas, participants kept going through the motions. But panic set in earlier this week when the Pentagon presented Trump with a bill for $92 million. From there the project rolled smartly into the run away and pointing fingers phase as the Pentagon announced a “postponement” of the proceedings. And now the project to make Trump feel those authoritarian chills enjoyed by his buddies Kim and Vlad and Xi … is rushing for the Bad Idea finish line.
Having affixed the blame where it doesn’t belong, Trump is ready to mark this down as how he saved the country millions.
Translation: Trump will … run away. Run away some more. Then hold a smaller parade next year which will actually still run into the tens of millions but every dime less than $92 million will be counted as Money I Saved You. And new F35 fighters cost $94 million each. So … no. We will not buy more jet fighters. With the money we did have to begin with.
A tip for whoever has the next anti-Trump protest in Washington. Drop the word “march” and add “parade.” Give Trump what he wants. Only with less tanks, more pink hats.