Haven’t seen a thread on this, was looking for one this morning and didn’t see it.
Any thoughts on the Army parade vs. the No Kings rallies this weekend?
My thoughts on the No Kings rallies:
2000 separate but coordinated rallies across all 50 states, quite impressive.
Total tally of attendees are a little below 5 million people at this point, or 2% of the total US population. Combined it was the largest collective rally in US history.
It was largely peaceful, as expected. Some Trump enthusiasts were acting up, but it was rare and limited.
My thoughts on the Big Beautiful Army Parade:
It was the 250th anniversary of the Army, so a parade was not out of the question and we have had military parades before. Usually to celebrate the end of a war, though.
It did coincide with Trump’s birthday, which is sort of bad timing because he was really pushing for one of these for years, even in his first term. He saw first hand the Bastille Day celebration in France and really wanted that pageantry here. Costs for this range from 25-45 million dollars. I don’t think that was money well spent. No one wanted this other than Trump.
The parade marching wasn’t very coordinated, but that isn’t how our Armed Forces works. We never worked on parade marches after Basics for the most part, we had real jobs to do. And the soldiers marching in the parade weren’t in sync because, why would they be? They’re real soldiers.
Trump insisted any protests would be dealt with harshly, which sort of violates the 1st. Never the less, it just wound up being sparsely attended and really low energy. Very quiet. Very somber. Not at all inspiring to me, and perhaps that is best since we really shouldn’t be doing these sorts of things as a nation, it is not what we are about.
Estimates for the attendance seem to be around 20-25 thousand folks, while the White House is claiming 250,000 people. From what I saw, that seems to be inflated. It wasn’t very well attended for whatever reason. Trump seemed to think folks were afraid it would be bad weather due to wrong forecasts.
Regardless, a very interesting weekend. It seems the protests were much more successful than the possible vanity project of Trump. All props to the Army, of which I proudly served, and I certainly celebrate the 250th anniversary of their founding. But I have to be honest, this is not a very good tribute to them, they deserved better.
So is the story of the left 2025, their only thought is they hate Trump. Nothing more. No reasoning behind it. Just know to not hate Trump is to deviate from leftists groupthink and that is verboten.
here’s my thoughts on the pathetic “no kings” nonsense. bunch of clue-less crybaby lefties with no knowledge of US government still hating on elon musk.
this is just a mass copium cry-in for losing in nov
You don’t mention any cost to keep the TDS sufferers safe on their journeys of platitudes in all these locations. LEOs, firefighters, medical personnel, sanitation facilities all cost money. Who pays for it?
How many of these “2%ers” are paid? And who paid them? What is that cost?
You are aware the branch services are experiencing a spike in enlistments and the Army has already reached their 2025 goal right? So by your cost analysis of the DC parade, I’d say just for advertisement purposes and a showcase of the Army’s technological capabilities and hardware it’s money well spent.
Ours and extended family have been serving as far recorded as the French and Indian War when then Lt Colonel George Washington surrendered Ft. Necessity after the Battle of Great Meadows in Fayette County PA. All branches (even the Navy) up to and including Iraq and AStan. The wife and I watched the whole thing. My father and uncles came home after the Nazis surrendered. The wife lost an paratroop uncle and her father was injured in Korea. Our two oldest served right out of HS. All Army all the time.
I’ll agree some of the troop looked a little sloppy marching. I even noticed the ranks “eyes left” when passing the CIC wasn’t even close to right.
But what does this old ass E-6 know? Maybe the new SECDEF has a plan to get that ■■■■ corrected?
Sloppy!!! Most of them looked like they did not want to be there.
Overall There was no energy or excitement from what I saw.
A good parade feeds off the observers excitement and those at the parade get excited by what they are seeing. There was none of thT synergy.
In my opinion Americans dont need to see a big show of military might they are already confident and comfortable knowing the US has the most capable and effective military in the world. This is why overall there was not a great deal of enthusiasm.
That is what his Press Secretary said, not him. The only thing he said, on the record is this:
“For those people who want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force,” Trump said on June 10. “And I haven’t even heard about a protest. But you know, these are people who hate our country. But they will be met with very heavy force.”
This is not an ambiguous statement. Cleanup from Levitt aside.
