Trump’s army parade was neither the totalitarian North Korean spectacle that critics had grimly predicted, nor the triumph of MAGA nationalism fans craved
I always enjoy a feel-good story.
I see the lackluster parade as a victory for democracy. Democracies don’t have massive goose-stepping parades in glory of their dear leader. That’s a fascist dictator thing, and surely what Trump wanted, but what he got was the kind of parade that you get in a democracy where the military exists for defense rather than tue glorification of the generalissimo.
Well done, military peeps.
He could have said “This weird obsession with dick sizes”, and it would still be on point.
Jokes are always funnier when you explain them!
i mean the hand gesture was clearly alluding to that. he basically said it without saying it.
Woosh.
I had the misfortune of hearing the opinions of some conservative family on the matter on Father’s Day.
It was the best thing since sliced bread, apparently, and Trump “deserved” it because “it’s his birthday”, while “no one” showed up for the No Kings protests.
Don’t ever be fooled into thinking that a lackluster performance will disappoint his fans.
Seems like a no-show is called for then.
Fascists and their sympathisers deserve to be isolated.
That’s what the media is telling them. Fox in particular, but the networks have been downplaying No Kings.
That and facebook and talk radio, I really wish there was a practical way to shut the bastards down without causing undue collateral. Sadly wiping out the talking heads wouldn’t amount to jack shit.
June 4 from now on will be known as “NO KINGS” day .
The delusional right might ignore the massive protests but the tide is turning, they will disavowal their allegiances to the orange Krasnov.
Man, I sure hope he went home and realized how much of a fucking loser he is. You know he won’t though. In his head it was fantasy land North Korea type spectacle. They’ll have some post about how it was bigly and bester than any other parade and how there just have been a million people in attendance with sold out tickets.
A tent managed by a beverage company handed out room-temperature bottles of an energy drink, Phorm. The flavor, called Screamin’ Freedom, tasted like hard candies dissolved in water, and an advisory on the cans warned that they were not to be consumed by minors or pregnant women.
If we saw this in a movie, we would laugh at how overly top unreal it was.
PHORM. It’s what facism craves!
*phacism
Phaxism
Brawndo
The thirst mutilator
It’s got electrolytes!
The flavor, called Screamin’ Freedom, tasted like hard candies dissolved in water
This is ridiculous. Room-temperature energy drinks are supposed to taste like cough syrup.
Brawndo, it’s got what the body craves.
See, everything was room temperature at the protests because fuck ICE. When they do room temperature its just incompetence
Pretty sure that warning is on a most heavily caffeinated energy drinks
Someone saw office uprising and thought yes I have that energy.
Did you do the campaign that sold 30,000 automatic shotguns to Blackwater? No, we did. How about the nukey the talking warhead campaign? Nope, we did that too. How about that Iraq port game now for children? Oh nope, that was us too. How about my personal favorite: The Agent Orange Soda Campaign? DING, DING, THAT WAS US TOO! ADVER-F–KING-TISING! See, we make reality out of…nothing.
I’m so confused. Are they actually bragging about those things?
In the movie? oh yeah. Dude was super evil. Becoming a half brain zombie resulted in little change.
The parade was also afflicted with bone spurs.
The American military doesn’t train to put on parade theatre for a despot. No high stepping, no elaborate formations or movements. None of that pointless bullshit. If you see a military parade from NK or China achieving dazzling perfect performances, while impressive, that’s all it is; a visual performance. All they do is practice for those events. Those are not uniforms. They’re costumes. Those are not soldiers. They’re a dance troupe. These are completely different skillsets. Soldiers don’t need to know how to dance perfectly in formation. They storm the objective, execute the mission, and get the fuck out. You might as well send a marching band into combat, because that’s all they would become.
It’s funny how they want to force the US military into performing flamboyant pageantry, while also kicking out the gays.
Thats all nice what you said but its far more likely the members of the army just didnt care as much rather than they are incapable of marching in unison.
I know this from experience. Perfect formation marching must be drilled constantly. The US military does not waste its time with it because it is useless beyond Basic Training.
I agree that they clearly didn’t want to be at his stupid little parade. Yes, they half-assed it. It just blows my mind that Trump clearly expected pageantry when our military has never once put on such a show.
I know this from experience. Perfect formation marching must be drilled constantly. The US military does not waste its time with it because it is useless beyond Basic Training.
As do I. There is no active duty enlisted person not capable of marching down a street in step in a reasonably square block. (And I would assume this also true for officers but I wouldn’t know that.)
We’re not talking about doing a halftime show in a marching band. It takes an hour of instruction and practice to do it reasonably well.
Sorry if it seems like I’m jumping on you, but I’m stunned at the number of folks scratching their heads like they aren’t sure if the soldiers were intentionally out of step or not, and you are just the first one I’ve replied to. They were intentionally out of step.
I’m not saying they weren’t intentionally out of step (I definitely would have been) but based on my experience also in the military, as well as high school marching band, many people suck at it even after weeks of practice and my band director cared way about it than any NCO ever did, either in boot camp or beyond. They taught us how to align left and right, and how to march around a corner in formation. We did that until the end of boot camp and then never again. We got our asses handed to us for all kinds of minor infractions, but never once did I see anybody get even scolded for being out of step.
Frankly, it used to drive me crazy.
No worries dude, it doesn’t feel like you’re jumping on me. Maybe they were just way more lax about it in the Navy. When it came to marching, in my experience they barely gave a fuck.
One thing that seems pretty telling to me, and isn’t really being mentioned, is that I didn’t see any of them in dress uniforms. Weren’t they all in camo?
Maybe they were just way more lax about it in the Navy. When it came to marching, in my experience they barely gave a fuck.
I was also USN, but it occurred to me after reading your post that maybe (I’m effing old) they do care about it less now than when I was in. To be clear - I too never marched after boot camp and A school, but if I’d been ordered to go be in a parade I’m sure we could have pulled it off.
No worries dude, it doesn’t feel like you’re jumping on me.
Thanks! 🙂 And do you still cringe when you hear someone say “Hey Shipmate?” It’s been decades and I do!
My boot camp division actually did march in formation during Milwaukee’s 4th of July parade. So we weren’t too bad at it really.
I still treasure the sound of disappointed children when I expertly avoided stepping in a pile of horse shit.
Lol, yes I do!
The American military doesn’t train to put on parade theatre for a despot. No high stepping, no elaborate formations or movements. None of that pointless bullshi
Marines doing the silent drill in dress uniform : 👀
That’s like 20 dudes though who’s entire job is drill and ceremonies, though.
The guys marching in this parade looked like they were forced on a group walk, and none of them looked like they wanted to be there.
Marching in step is basic training stuff. They know how to do it if they want to. The fact that they didn’t is very important.
It’s harder than it looks, especially for miles and miles.
They might know how to do it, but people make mistakes.
Even if they were trying (and I don’t think they did give it 100%) you’d still be finding people who were out of step.
Totally agreed. It’s very much a statement being sent. It wasn’t even half assed. You could get a group of normal people together and in an hour get them to at least be in lock step. These guys were just walking together loosely in formation.
What Trump wanted far exceeds marching in step. But even just that requires regular practice, which the US military simply does not bother with. Exceptions being a few ceremonial guards.
Sure, but the important point is that they know how to do better than they did. They’re refusing on purpose.
I know that’s what I’d have done.
Oh, I agree with all of you guys. I think they half-assed it on purpose. I have some friends that are in some premier units in the military, and all of them have pretty much come out and said their commanders have told them they will not deploy in this country.
Like ‘here’s how you sabotage your gear then go home with your loved ones’ kind of talks.
The military is not on his side.
He said what he fucking said
Frederick the Great’s legacy shines irony on many a homopgobic leader
To explain and expand a bit on this: Frederick the Great was likely gay or at least somewhat queer, but also a military innovator who laid the basis for Prussia’s iron discipline. Back then units were most effective when in perfect formation, but moving around the battlefield disrupted formation, hence the invention of the goose step to rapidly move units around on the battlefield without losing formation. Invented by a gay king.
So today we’ve got homophobic dictators emulating that for pure theatre and looks, over a century after it has lost any military purpose.
Additionally I’ve heard suspicion that some of the traditional pomp and theatrics that flow back to him are because he found it attractive.
If you’ve ever looked at all that dress military stuff snd thought that it just seemed a bit gayer than one would expect a military to get, just remember Frederick was that good. Like, made his small German kingdom into the European power of Prussia good.
All I can think of, is Monty Python’s Close Order Nastiness. “We know where you’ve been, you military fairy! OOOOOH”
yup. this is how we save money! By putting on a pointless fucking parade to stroke his fucking ego.
Much like everything else he touches. he’s like king Midas, but with shit.
King Mierdas.
imagine joining the military to serve the country and then being used as pencil dick compensation by a draft dodging con man. and then being the focus of ridicule by half the nation
Its better than being tricked into killing civilians in the middle east for the past 35 years at least.
Much more than 1/2 the nation.
which is also embarrassing, seeing as how he’s still getting away with literally everything
“Democracy” says otherwise, regardless of any numbers or stats thrown around.
Planet
The half heartedness of the military in this parade suggests that they will be half hearted in their enforcement of the regime too. This would make it much easier to resist and overthrow the regime (or at least enforce rule by mass civil disobedience) as large sections of the military are likely to make only a token effort to suppress it.
Yes! I think that’s a very important hint. These guys know how to march in step. It’s drilled in to them from day one in the military. They didn’t do it, and their commanding officers aren’t making them do it.
I’ll probably be accused of being an optimist again, but I think June 14 is when we started winning. That comes from multiple angles.
I’m a big fan of fact-based optimism, and I think you’re right.
Indeed.
She defended Trump’s decision to ban transgender troops from the military, and complained that Biden had subjected the military to political correctness and DEI initiatives. “The military is not a social experiment.”
The irony of saying this statement at a self-fellating and totally unnecessary military parade is too much
You know if they’d had some drag queens putting this show on it would’ve been fabulous as fuck.
Meanwhile, in 1948, Executive Order 9981.
From that Wikipedia article:
when pub owners in Bamber Bridge were told to segregate their facilities by the US military, they installed signs that read “Black Troops Only”
🤣
As she and the other leftists marched, a young man, bare chested and wearing a bucket hat, approached a demonstration marshal. He seemed confused. He wanted to know where the protest for the opposite point of view could be found.
Whaaat? 😂
A secret service officer, trying to explain the general confusion, just sighed. “Nobody knows what’s going on.”
I’m dead 😂 😂 😂
I snorted my coffee reading this.
A secret service officer, trying to explain the general confusion, just sighed. “Nobody knows what’s going on.”
Not even Trump.
