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June 8, 2025
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June 15, 2025
The Parade Before the Fall
First of all… to my American friends: Happy Flag Day.
Flag Day commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. It is a day meant to honor the values that flag represents: liberty, unity, and the enduring principles of a democratic republic.
But today, those very values will be tested.
Later today, the nation will witness the Army 250th Anniversary Parade in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump will transform what should be a solemn and unifying tribute to American military service into a carefully staged celebration of personal power. Though officially billed as a tribute to 250 years of Army legacy, the event will also coincide with Trump’s 79th birthday, a convergence of symbolism and self-worship that has sparked alarm across the country.
While the Army’s storied history deserves recognition, today’s parade won’t just celebrate the military. It will spotlight the man in the White House. And that spotlight, many argue, will cast a long and dangerous shadow over American democratic norms.
A National Army, A Personal Spectacle
No president in modern U.S. history has synchronized a major military parade with his own birthday. While this alignment may be publicly dismissed as coincidence, few observers believe it is accidental. President Trump has long shown an affection for military pageantry, not as a symbol of shared sacrifice but as a backdrop for his own mythology.
Today, rows of soldiers will march. Tanks will roll down Constitution Avenue. Air Force jets will thunder overhead. But the central image will be unmistakable: Donald Trump, standing as the apex of American power, receiving salutes not just as Commander-in-Chief but as a self-styled strongman.
Not in Our Name
The response has been swift and nationwide. Veterans’ organizations including Common Defense, Veterans for Democracy, and Vietnam Veterans Against the War have denounced the event and called for mass demonstrations not only in Washington but in cities across the country from Boston to Seattle, from Dallas to Detroit.
In an open letter signed by over 1,000 veterans, organizers declared:
“The Army 250th Anniversary Parade should honor those who served, not glorify a president who sees soldiers as ornaments of his ego. The U.S. military does not march for men. It marches for principles. We will not stand by while that sacred oath is turned into theater.”
Demonstrators are expected to gather in major public squares. These protests will include veterans, civil rights groups, religious leaders, teachers, students, and everyday citizens who recognize that what unfolds today is not merely ceremonial. It is political. It’s not a tribute. It’s a warning.
Pope Leo’s Quiet Rebuttal in Chicago
In a striking contrast, Pope Leo XIV, will spend today livestreaming from Rome to Chicago. His message will be directed to migrant communities, the dispossessed, and will discuss the dangers of nationalism masquerading as patriotism. His virtual appearance, while not overtly political, sends a powerful message: true leadership uplifts the vulnerable, not the powerful.
Pope Leo’s virtual visit is already drawing large and peaceful crowds, many of whom will be holding American and Vatican flags side by side. His presence, marked by humility and moral clarity, will stand in stark relief against the bombast unfolding in Washington.
As one Chicago priest said this morning:
“While tanks roll in D.C., the Holy Father walks with the homeless.”
The juxtaposition is jarring and deeply telling.
The Strongman’s Playbook
Military parades, when done in free societies, are rare and reverent. But in authoritarian regimes they are routine tools of spectacle. Russia, China, North Korea, Egypt, all use such displays to equate national strength with a single leader’s supremacy. By wrapping his birthday in the Army’s legacy, Trump walks that very path.
He isn’t just celebrating. He’s campaigning in camouflage.
With mounting legal troubles and waning policy support, today’s parade gives Trump the opportunity to project invincibility without accountability. It is a rally in formation. A ballot box replaced by a flyover. A democracy drowned out by the drums of manufactured might.
Undermining the Civil-Military Divide
Perhaps most troubling, today’s event threatens one of the most sacred norms of American governance: the nonpartisan role of the military.
The Pentagon has long resisted becoming a political tool, and for good reason. The Armed Forces swear allegiance to the Constitution, not the president. But today, under Trump’s command, they will be paraded for his birthday, as if their loyalty lies not with the republic but with its ruler.
Off-the-record statements from Pentagon officials describe the parade as “a dangerous politicization of the chain of command” and “a spectacle that undermines what the Army actually stands for.”
If the military can be repurposed as a birthday prop, what can’t?
When the Flags Are Folded
When the final plane has flown and the last cadence dies out, we will be left not just with images of a parade but with a moment that may define a generation.
The Army 250th Anniversary Parade could have been a unifying tribute to the service of millions of Americans across centuries. Instead, it risks becoming a historical inflection point, a moment when military celebration became political submission, and when the republic stood at attention not for its people but for a man.
But across this country, in protest lines and prayer circles, in Chicago’s streets and on courthouse steps, something else will unfold: the enduring refusal of Americans to accept spectacle as substance.
The protesters will not have tanks.
They will not have jets.
They will not have a parade.
But they will have something infinitely more American.
The courage to say no to the politicization of power, and yes to the republic that power is meant to serve.
