Marching Toward Authoritarianism: Trump’s Obsession with Military Parades
In a disturbing revival of his old authoritarian daydreams, Donald Trump is once again pushing for a grand U.S. military parade—this time to celebrate his own birthday in June 2025. It’s a callback to a similar obsession he developed after witnessing the Bastille Day military display in France in 2017. That parade featured tanks, aircraft, and thousands of uniformed troops marching through Paris. But while French military parades commemorate the storming of the Bastille—an uprising of the people against monarchy—Trump took away something far different: the thrill of armed power under central command. Now he wants that power on display in Washington, D.C., on his birthday. And that should terrify us. When Power Poses as Patriotism Authoritarian regimes have long used military parades not only as demonstrations of strength but as spectacles of loyalty and obedience. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party rallies at Nuremberg were carefully choreographed theatrical events that glorified natio...