Breaking Vlad
According to Michael Cohen’s 2020 book, “Disloyal: a Memoir,” Trump was enamored with Vladimir Putin’s seeming unlimited wealth, his all-encompassing power and the fear he inspired. Putin was everything Trump’s ego needed. Trump wanted to be Putin. “The whole idea of patriotism and treason became irrelevant in his mind,” Cohen writes.
But even a dimwit like Trump understands that the presidency can’t afford him Putin-esque powers — yet. He’s going to have to creep — creep mind you — up on those powers before seizing them with both hands. The American people require a certain amount of … conditioning.
As a step in that direction, plans for a military parade on Trump’s birthday are already being finalised. The parade will call for more than 6,600 soldiers, at least 150 vehicles including tanks, 50 helicopters, seven bands and a possible flypast by the US Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, also known as the Blue Angels.
Fox News reports that the parade is a definite go-ahead and will happen on 14 June, both the 250th birthday of the United States army as well as Trump’s own birthday, when he will begin his 80th year. The cost will be something in the neighbourhood of 100 million dollars to a government that crows that it’s cutting costs through the Orwellian-named “Department of Government Efficiency.” No doubt people and organisations who have been profoundly affected by Elon Musk’s wasteful cuts will find the parade uniquely galling.
Historian Michael Beschloss, quoting President Dwight David Eisenhower, said the general had this to say when asked if the United States should indulge in military parades. “Absolutely not, we are the pre-eminent power on Earth. For us to try to imitate what the Soviets are doing in Red Square would make us look weak.”
For Trump, as the saying goes, that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. Looking like the Soviets is what Putin wants, and Trump, by extension, wants it too. Trump cozying up to dictators and pissing off America’s allies is part of his program, part of his ultimate plan for Breaking Vlad, as it were, joining the club of the world’s dictators as its most powerful member.
A blood-curdling, expensive, chest-beating display of small dick energy, staged to overcome Trump’s pitiful feelings of inadequacy, is the last thing a country entering a self-inflicted recession needs. Trump’s feelings will no doubt be mixed. After all, 14 June is a Saturday, which means he will have to give up a golf day.
But Trump will probably take a long weekend to make up for it. After all, a man who demands that the American people pay homage to him while enduring hardships that he himself caused is the ultimate in cruelty, and Trump loves cruelty even more than a parade. Just like Vlad.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.