Trump’s Tanking Fourth
Trump has decided alone that he, er, America, deserved a TV spectacular Fourth like nobody has ever seen before, anywhere. He calls it “the show of a lifetime”. Trump’s whole term seems like that. The “Salute to America” will be full of Fire and Fury. Trump is topping this off with Tanks on Parade, despite the risk of them damaging DC streets. These include old Sherman tanks, which Trump could have seen in action in Vietnam, had he not gotten bone spurs from quarterbacking his military academy football team. I wonder if he has also threatened to sue if the academy released the scores of those games, as he has for his grades?
People think that Trump got the idea for the tanks from watching Macron’s Bastille Day Parade. I think that he got the idea from Syrian President Bashar al Assad surrounding his residence with tanks for protection. Remember when Trump told us how he had been under Siege, like no President ever in history, and how he deserved two more years added onto his term because of that? It is also possible that he got the idea from film of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Uprising of June 4, 1989, where tanks cleared out the demonstrators, before police attacked them. Bastille Day celebrates when the French stormed the Bastille prison in 1789 to release political prisoners. Trump, on the other hand, never criticizes dictators or mentions their treatment of political prisoners: over a hundred thousand in North Korea, and a million Muslims in China. Plus Egypt, plus Turkey, plus Saudi Arabia’s killing of Washington Post reporter Adnan Khashoggi.
I think it is nice that the fire works company donated the 35 minute fireworks show, which will undoubtedly be the greatest fireworks show for all times anywhere. They import most of their fireworks from China, and don’t want to have to pay the 25% tariff on them. I actually greatly enjoy fireworks shows, and watch several of them on July 4th on TV and on YouTube, and from Laguna Beach live.
Trump appropriately chose the Lincoln Memorial to stage his self bolstering speech from, since Lincoln was the Greatest Republican President, until Trump, that is. Fortunately, Trump reserved the fronting half of the mall for Republicans and Donors, to save the rest of us from his bombast. We hope that the Lincoln Memorial will remind Trump that he took his Oath of Office on both his and Lincoln’s bibles. The Oath of Office simply consists of the pledge to uphold the US Constitution.
All Hail the Chief. I just hope that he doesn’t violate the Flag Code again by hugging the flag. New York City should promise Trump a ticker-tape parade down 5th Avenue for all the wealth that has continued to accrue from the Obama led recovery, and the Trump $2 trillion tax cut for the rich and the corporate stock buybacks from the lowered corporate tax rate. That buyback increased the market, but largely did not expand the real size or worth of the businesses. What do they call that, a bubble?
I also gained in my historical knowledge by actually reading the Declaration of Independence. Some of the complaints against Britain could be mistaken for Trump overriding the Constitution. Two of the grievances were Britain cutting off all world trade from the colonies, and Britain cutting off immigration. Others were ignoring the legislatures.
Trump started out the day by saying about reviving the Citizenship question on the Census, “you’re either a citizen or an illegal”. About 22 million are not citizens, but half of those, 11 million, are legal residents. The Constitution says that all People in America are to be counted. Anything that gets in the way of that can be said to be unconstitutional. The Washington Post shows that the Hispanic undercount in California would be 1.84 million, or 4.6% of the state population. That would cause California to lose two Congressional seats. That would also cost California that share of about $900 billion in Federal programs. Texas would undercount 1.15 million Hispanics, or 3.9% of its population, and that would cost it one Congressional seat, although it would gain 3 from population growth, giving it a net 2.
Well, it was spectacular, and couldn’t be topped as far as patriotism and glorification of our military past. Without mentioning partisanship, it was a great popularity booster that no other candidate or group of candidates could come close to matching. I’m glad that Trump covered the abolition of slavery, led by Abraham Lincoln, whose memorial he was speaking from. Going to Mars someday was celebrated by planting the American Flag there, which seems like a reason that nobody else emphasizes.
