WASHINGTON – Military parades, “treasonous” opponents – do you sense a pattern here?
President Trump is such a master of the politics of distraction that everything he says and does is assumed to be a diversion from something more important, the Russia collusion issue above all.
It’s certainly true that in Trump’s exotic circus of scandal and outrage, many stories that would have engulfed earlier administrations roll right off the back of the news cycle. Consider, for starters, his profiting while president from his resorts and golf clubs, his alleged payoff of a porn star, and the resignation of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over conflicts of interest.
On the substance of policy, he can govern largely by stealth. Discussion of the decisions his administration has made on a range of regulatory, environmental, labor, health care and tax matters gets pushed to the bottom of the public agenda.
It will thus be tempting to dismiss Trump’s desire to have a big military parade as yet another ploy to change the subject. Trump knows perfectly well that many liberals are uneasy with massive demonstrations of military strength, so some who might raise their voices in dissent could draw back out of fear that he is baiting them and that they’ll play into his hands. Trump clearly longs to be the lead figure on the reviewing stand gazing out on the tanks and missiles as a tribute to his own power, while casting his critics as unpatriotic foes of our men and women in uniform.