OPINION:
Just because Rice University’s Douglas Brinkley says a Trump idea sucks doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.
Mr. Brinkley is the left’s presidential historian of choice. He calls President Trump a racist as easily and naturally as you and I say “Good morning.”
Mr. Brinkley even says the first year of the Trump presidency should be marked with an asterisk, since throughout his first year all “everybody” was doing was waiting for him to resign or be impeached.
So those of us not of the knee-jerk Trump-hating persuasion are tempted to say if Professor Brinkley dislikes something — anything — it must be good.
In his latest oral eruption, Mr. Brinkley says President Trump’s sudden desire to hold a big July 4 military parade in Washington smacks of totalitarian chest-pounding.
Actually, it does remind me of the Kremlin’s annual and dismal military displays in Red Square.
Ditto the People’s Republic of China’s once-annual military muscle-flexing parade celebrating Mao Zedong’s revolutionary victory in 1949, which set China back by at least 100 years. Those parades have become once every five- or 10-year events but may become annual again under Mao reincarnation Xi Jinping.
Kim Jong-un just held another of his displays of soldiers tramping their strange steps and showing off North Korea’s long-range missiles (looking suspiciously like the ones we said we’d never let him have).
Mr. Trump’s love for big, muscular, brassy military parades may have always been deep inside him, but it surfaced suddenly last month after he had stood with French President Emmanuel Macron on Bastille Day. Okay, that was last July 14. Some things take time to bubble up the memory duct.
Anyhow, for the U.S. to start annual major July 4 military parades in Washington just doesn’t seem to capture what America is all about.
The shining city on the hill is not a militaristic image.
Military parades on local scales have always thrilled moms, dads and kids. And there will continue to, as they should, in towns all over the country to honor vets and active duty folks.
We have the mightiest military on the planet. We will keep it that way. Especially with a guy named Trump running the show.
Everybody in the world knows that. Nobody’s going to try to invade and conquer us. We’ve nothing to prove on that front.
Still, the more I write about this, the more I think of John Philip Sousa and the more I hear his stirring tunes in my head.
Yes, The Stars and Stripe Forever!
What’s this? I feel my feet moving, knees pumping. I’m marching.
I see our magnificent men and women in their sharp uniforms, precise formations and proud steps.
I’m waving my tiny Stars and Stripes on a little wooden pole as I did as a kid.
The ramrod straight Marine Corps is tramp-tramp-tramping before me.
Look up. Pulse quickens. F-35As streak overhead. Off we go!
Now it’s anchors away in dress blues and whites passing before me in tight formation.
Now hear the caissons go rolling along.
I ache to join the parade.
Oh, what the hell! What’s another $12 million out of a federal budget that’s already so busted it’s not funny?
Go for it, Mr. President.
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