As you’ve probably heard by now, over the weekend Donald Trump will celebrate his 79th birthday in the most perfect way possible: with a hugely costly military parade, the likes of which would not be out of place in North Korea. What do you get for the guy who has everything? The manifestation of all of his authoritarian hopes and dreams, of course!
Unfortunately, there’s one slight wrinkle that will not please the man we’re probably mere months away from being forced to address as “Dear Leader,” “His Royal Highness,” or “the Greatest President to Ever Live”: A whole bunch of Republican lawmakers are RSVP’ing “no” to the event, something they will think twice about doing when the penalty is being thrown into the gulag.
Yes, Politico surveyed 50 GOP lawmakers, and just seven said they were planning to stay in town for the festivities, which are nominally about celebrating the US Army’s 250th birthday and just coincidentally coincide with Trump’s. Sure, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Elise Stefanik and Byron Donalds will be there, but the chairs of the House and Senate armed services committees? Skipping. Senate majority leader John Thune and majority whip John Barrasso? Skipping and skipping.
In a clear attempt to let the president down easy, the excuses for not being there were carefully worded. West Virginia senator Jim Justice, for example, told Politico that, though he will not be present, “it’s great celebrating President Trump’s birthday and…great celebrating the military.” While he’ll be similarly missing the proceedings, House Appropriations Committee chair Tom Cole said the event is “celebrating the birthday of the Army and I think it’s a good thing to do,” adding: “I just didn’t get to go home last week and I’d like to get to go this week.” Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin told Politico that it’s his anniversary; Tennessee representative Tim Burchett claimed that the event falls on the same weekend as his daughter’s 18th birthday. Even South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham said he doesn’t plan to show up, “though he left open the possibility,” because of course he did.
During a budget hearing last week, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll estimated that the cost of the event could be up to $40 million, with the tanks’ likely damage to DC streets still to be seen. “Like his deployment of the military in LA, it’s a shocking waste of money at a time they are closing Social Security offices ‘to save money,’” Democratic representative Don Beyer said in a statement. “They’re shutting down our regional transportation, including the airport, for this, and people I hear from in the military don’t even want it. The whole thing is just to boost Trump’s fragile ego.”
On Tuesday, Trump warned that people protesting at the event would face “very big force.” His close personal friend Kim Jong Un would be proud!
Look, it’s only okay to attack law enforcement when it’s part of an attempted coup, okay?
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