What I Saw At Trump's Military Parade

Trump may want to be a dictator—but his supporters won’t follow him as blindly as he thinks.

by Ben Cohen

With political violence rising in the U.S., I felt a bit uneasy going to Trump’s military parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. With the scene of the parade being only minutes away from the January 6th riot, I worried about the risk of violence, particularly given Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated that same morning.

“Are you sure you want to go?” my wife asked before I set out. “Couldn’t you just watch it on TV?”

I thought of my dad who reported on the Brixton riots in 1981 and had to phone in reports from a taxi office while petrol bombs exploded around him.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I reassured her — and myself. “You’d have to be pretty silly to try anything while the U.S. army is out in full force”.

So off I went on a hot, extremely humid Saturday evening to President Trump’s birthday party — sorry, 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army — with my iPhone and notepad in hand.

The parade was set to take place at 6.30pm near the Lincoln Memorial, and would proceed along the Mall past the White House and the Washington Monument. I left early and parked about a mile and a half away from the event and began walking down. Scrolling through X as I walked along an eerily empty Constitution Ave, I saw that the event had kicked off at 6pm due to weather events. Great.

I picked up the pace and finally saw some people who looked like they were heading to the parade.

What struck me first was the surprising diversity of the crowd. There were black families, Latinos, white retirees, a large number of South Asians — all braving the brutal humidity to witness the celebration of America’s military might. I spoke to an African American dad hauling his two- and four year-old in a utility wagon in the same direction. “What brought you here?” I asked.

“My kids love tanks and helicopters so I thought I’d bring ‘em along,” he said.

“What do you think of Trump?” I asked.

“I don’t like him personally,” he answered cautiously. “But I think he’s doing some good things. I want to see where it goes.”

Worried I had missed it, I asked a policewoman where the actual parade was starting. “It’s just getting going,” she said. “Take a left up there, and keep going” she added, pointing to the intersection of Pennsylvania and Constitution ave.

I turned left and continued up Constitution where the crowd became noticeably denser. After a few minutes I reached 12th street where the line to see the actual parade began. I approached a highly inebriated, middle-aged white woman wearing a MAGA hat and asked her whether this was in fact the line to see the parade. “Just keeping going hon!” she slurred, then tried to show me something on her phone. “Listen to this!” It was so loud I couldn’t make out what it was but I smiled and said thank you anyway.

“Are you from DC?” I shouted. “Hell no!” she yelled back. “I’m from California!”

I told her I used to live in Los Angeles. “It’s a shithole!” she declared, and then stumbled off in the other direction.

On the corner of 12th I was met by a large group of “No Kings” protestors who had camped out on the grass. “Fuck ICE! Fuck ICE! Fuck ICE!” went the chants. And then “Chinga la migra! Chinga la migra! Chinga la migra!”

I tried to speak to one of the protestors but was told by an army officer that if we wanted to see the parade, we had to get in line. So I moved past the protestors edged towards the barriers where would be security checks.

‘No Kings’ protestors at the corner of 12th and Constitution

Next to me stood a group of young students and a young man in full military garb chatting away. “Do we need a ticket to get in?” I asked.

“You don’t need to pay,” one of the students told me in heavy Southern drawl. “But you do need to sign up online”.

I had spend quite a bit of time researching the parade before coming but had seen no mention of tickets. “Where do I get it from?” I asked. The student then helpfully read out this extraordinarily complicated URL on a website I’d never heard of: https://events.america250.org/events/250th-anniversary-of-the-us-army-grand-military-parade-and-celebration

I signed up and got my QR code wondering whether the obscure website had only been circulated in right wing media outlets in an effort to keep liberals out.

The line was barely moving so I started chatting to my new friends.

The Southern student who helped me register turned out to be from Mississippi and was working on the Hill as a congressional staffer. He was friendly, polite, and seemed genuinely pleased that I’d come out to see the parade. He was a Trump supporter, but not a rabid one.

“I think the whole third-term stuff is mostly hype,” he told me when I brought it up. “Trump says a lot of things he probably shouldn’t. He really can’t keep his mouth shut. But he’s pretty funny. In 2024 thought it was a choice between two bad candidates. I think most people just want some kind of normal again.”

His friend was a student Florida who looked to be in his early twenties. “I’m more of a Mike Pence guy,” he volunteered. “Trump’s too loud and I don’t really go in for all of that. I’m a conservative Republican. But I like his policies for the most part. I just wish he’d stop talking so much.” When I asked him about the push for a Trump third term he seemed particularly uneasy. “I think it’s all talk, but he really pushes for a third term, I don’t want any part of that.”

As we spoke several large helicopters flew over us. Knowing absolutely nothing about military vehicles, I asked the young man dressed in Marine Corps garb. “Those are Chinooks,” he told me. “We used those in Khartoum to get the embassy staff out”.

I asked him how he felt about Trump. “Trump is my president,” he said plainly. “I support him 100%.” He went on to tell me he was originally from Nepal, but had come to the US when he was 7 and joined the Marine Corps when he left high school. He was deeply unimpressed by the protestors. “They should join the military if they want to protest during a parade,” he said, gesturing toward the chants of “Fuck ICE” coming from the grass. “This is Trump’s birthday. They should show some fucking respect.”

As we inched toward the final security checkpoint, a soldier near the barrier turned and announced: “Parade’s over, folks.”

Wait, what?

“What did we miss?” I asked.

“I didn’t see it either,” he shrugged.

The security checkpoint to get into the parade.

From what I could gather most of the crowd didn’t get to see the parade either. It was, like all things Trump, a total shambles. But I have to say, I was struck by how civil the whole thing was. The MAGA supporters were not only hugely diverse, but surprisingly open in their criticisms of Trump. The anti-Trump protestors were loud, but they did not antagonize the Trump supporters either, and made sure to keep their distance.

A man selling MAGA hats on the way to the parade

While the media constantly highlights the extreme political tensions roiling the country, Trump’s birthday parade and the “No Kings” protests seemed to me at least to be a snapshot of a country figuring out how to live with itself.

I thanked the Mississippi student for helping me out and wished him good luck. “You doing anything later?” he asked. “Come grab a drink with us!”

I politely declined and made my way slowly through a crowd of supposedly irreconcilable Americans who, for all their differences, were able to co-exist in the nation’s capitol without too much trouble.

Trump might want to be king, but even his supporters still see themselves as citizens, not subjects.

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