To mark the latter event – or, more realistically, both – the US Army staged a huge parade in Washington DC, with thousands of soldiers and more than 100 military vehicles making their way along Constitution Avenue to take the salute of their commander-in-chief on their shared birthday. It is the biggest military display in America’s capital for more than 30 years, and its estimated cost is up to $45m.
Context, however, is everything. The British Army is headed by and swears allegiance to a non-political hereditary monarchy, while American soldiers take an oath that they will “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same”. In Britain, the oath is personal, in the United States institutional. The monarch is above politics in a way the President cannot be, which is why American soldiers are loyal to an office, not its individual occupant. But this distinction is not one Trump accepts.
The vainglorious parade also coincides with a time of extraordinary tension between the armed forces and their political masters. Last weekend, to quell rioting in Los Angeles, the President activated 4,000 personnel from the California Army National Guard, without the consent or approval of the state’s governor, Democrat Gavin Newsom. He also authorised the use of a 700-strong light infantry battalion from the United States Marine Corps.
Perhaps, however, Trump’s desire to be Maga’s “strongman” and to defy any checks and balances is reaching its high-water mark. The parade’s organisers had expected 200,000 people to attend, and the White House director of communications announced on social media that “over 250,000 patriots” came to see the march, but that is almost certainly a lie; Trump’s coterie has a track record of distortion, manipulation and untruth when it comes to crowd sizes, hugely inflating the numbers supposedly attending his first inauguration in 2017.
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At the same time, the state of California has launched a legal case against the President, claiming that his assumption of control of the National Guard last weekend was not lawful or constitutional. There is a body of opinion – it is hard at the moment to say how large – which is increasingly disaffected, disenchanted and dismayed at Trump’s militaristic posturing, and his ravening appetite for fealty and flattery.Saturday’s parade was more reminiscent of a Soviet-era Red Square event than the ceremonial Trooping the Colour; malign and intimidatory rather than ritualised and symbolic. Some stayed away, others put on counter-protests declaring America has “No Kings”. Perhaps President Trump has reached the zenith of vainglory and self-aggrandisement. If the tide is turning, it is Trump’s own choices, high-handed and dictatorial, which are bringing about that change.
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