\n<\/p>\n
The 250th Army anniversary military parade-slash-79th birthday celebration was the kind of patriotic (and self-promotional) spectacle that Donald Trump<\/strong> had longed for since early in his first administration. Back in 2017, after attending a Bastille Day parade on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es, he reportedly told<\/a> French president Emmanuel Macron<\/strong> that he would \u201ctry and top it\u201d and hold a \u201creally great parade to show our military strength.\u201d But the Pentagon shot Trump down, with then defense secretary Jim Mattis<\/strong> saying he\u2019d \u201crather swallow acid,\u201d according to<\/a> a book by Guy Snodgrass,<\/strong> his former speechwriter.<\/p>\n But in this second term, Trump has been emboldened and unfettered by any grown-ups in the room. Trump now gets the things that he wants, whether they help him and his administration or not. The president was seated<\/a> on Saturday next to Pete Hegseth,<\/strong> the former Fox & Friends<\/em> cohost now leading the Pentagon. Though the Trump White House suggested that \u201cover 250,000 patriots\u201d attended<\/a>, the AP reported<\/a> that the crowd \u201cappeared to fall far short of early predictions that as many as 200,000 people would attend the festival and parade,\u201d with the outlet also noting the \u201clarge gaps between viewers near the Washington Monument.\u201d New York Times<\/em> reporters<\/a> \u201cdescribed an at-times underwhelming performance and crowds dispersing early amid a light drizzle.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a real split screen moment for America<\/a>, as millions of people participated in \u201cNo Kings\u201d demonstrations across more than 2,100<\/a> cities and towns in all 50 states<\/a>. Celebrities\u2014one of Trump\u2019s Achilles heels\u2014were also out in force, including<\/a> Kerry Washington,<\/strong> Glenn Close, Jimmy Kimmel,<\/strong> and Mark Ruffalo.<\/strong><\/p>\n As data journalist<\/a> G. Elliott Morris<\/strong> wrote, \u201cThere has been dramatically more protest activity against Trump in his second term compared to this point in his first term.\u201d Looking at early data, he extrapolated<\/a> that \u201croughly 4-6 million people protested Trump across the U.S. yesterday,\u201d or \u201cnearly 2%\u201d of the US population. \u201cMobilized anti-Trump resistance is exceeding 2017 levels,\u201d he added. Maybe Trump 1.0 officials who balked at holding a big military parade were actually doing Trump a favor, rather than dashing his dream because they weren\u2019t sufficiently loyal or MAGA.<\/p>\n The \u201cNo Kings\u201d organizers expressly didn\u2019t want a big counterdemonstration in Washington, DC, which is something worth noting and considering in this age of distraction. \u201cInstead of allowing this birthday parade to be the center of gravity, we will make action everywhere else the story of America that day,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n In our fractured, fragmented information ecosystem, organizers need to focus on how to break through, how to permeate the discourse, and how to connect to everyday people. In this case, the answer was not to go at<\/em> Trump on his turf, but to go around him, and to reveal the discontent with his administration in cities and towns both big and small. We\u2019ve seen frustration with Trumpism in polls<\/a>, but it\u2019s even more dynamic to see it on the streets.<\/p>\n It was 10 years ago today<\/a> that Trump came down the golden escalator, and while he\u2019s still a dominant figure in our lives, he no longer commands the news cycle in the same way he once did. A decade of Trumpism has blunted the shock and awe of someone who continuously does the most inflammatory thing and then doubles down on it.<\/p>\n Pictures of Trump looking bored<\/a> made the rounds online and stood in stark contrast to the aerial photos of tens of thousands of people in major cities, like Philadelphia, and crowds just about everywhere else, from Healy, Alaska<\/a>, to Florence, Alabama<\/a>. As millions marched in almost every pocket of America, there was a dark cloud that hung over all of it in the form of political violence.<\/p>\n Thousands of protesters flocked<\/a> to the Minnesota State Capitol as police were searching for Vance Boelter,<\/strong> a reported Trump supporter and antiabortion activist suspected<\/a> of killing Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, as well as wounding Democratic state senator John Hoffman<\/strong> and his wife; the latter two are expected to survive. Boelter is facing<\/a> state and federal charges related to the shootings and killings, with Governor Tim Walz<\/strong> describing<\/a> the latter as a \u201cpolitically motivated assassination.\u201d There were other acts of violence over the weekend too, as a man was accidentally shot and killed<\/a> at a Salt Late City \u201cNo Kings\u201d rally, while another man drove<\/a> an SUV into a crowd in Culpeper, Virginia.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard not to think of the 1960s, an era of large-scale protests and political assassinations. But we\u2019ve already seen horrific acts of political violence in recent years, from the hammer attack<\/a> on Paul Pelosi<\/strong> to the arson fire<\/a> at Josh Shapiro<\/strong>\u2019s home to the plot to kidnap<\/a> Gretchen Whitmer.<\/strong> Two Israeli Embassy staffers were killed last month in Washington; the man accused of the crime said<\/a> he \u201cdid it for Palestine.\u201d Trump, of course, was nearly assassinated<\/a> last summer.<\/p>\n In this tumultuous time, the American people are standing up even if Republicans, who control the Senate and House, have rubber-stamped Trump\u2019s Cabinet of deplorables and are signing on to a \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d that targets<\/a> Medicaid and food assistance while promising<\/a> tens of billions more to ICE. The \u201cNo Kings\u201d protests were a vivid illustration of an enraged electorate\u2014and let\u2019s hope Democratic leaders were paying attention. The public is clearly galvanized, and the party has an opportunity to harness that energy in taking back the House in 2026 and putting Trumpism in check.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n