Trump cancels Nov military parade in wake of huge costs, UTR II fallout
On the 19th of August, the Washington Post announced that Donald Trump has decided to cancel his proposed military parade honoring himself in response to a Pentagon estimate of a $93M cost. Trump "blamed" DC as a whole for this. This all occurred less than a week after the huge police operation staged by DC to protect neo-Nazis on Aug 12, and DC's cost estimate for that event of $2.6M.
If the Pentagon's review of parade costs was triggered by news of the huge amounts of money and huge numbers of cops that were required to protect a couple dozen Nazi bigots at "Unite the Right II," than the activist community can take partial credit for shutting down Trump's North Korean style military parade. The rest of the credit goes to the DC government for vowing from day one to obstruct the parade any way they could.
The failure of Jennifer Kerkhoff and the US Attorney's office to obtain even a single conviction at trial for the DisruptJ20 protests against Trump's inauguration may also have played a role in sinking Trump's parade. This is because Trump's advisers would fear that the main deterrent to opposing Trump in the streets has been not only removed but possibly reversed.
No doubt Trump's advisers feared this meant a Trump military parade ran the risk of being "another J20," upstaged by militant street protests, pepper spray and flashbangs, and pitched battles against alt-right white supremacists that would surely be attracted to the parade. For the international press to lead off their Nov 11 coverage with lurid stories of "rioting at Trump military parade" would not help Trump politically, rather it would be another blast of political headwinds like what he got from J20 itself.
If so, Trump's advisers were not the only ones to deem the parade to be potentially "Another J20." This parade along with the just-concluded Unite the Right II were widely believed to be the most volatile events on the calendar this year.
Trump's inauguration was four days of chaos that took much of the wind out of Trump's sails. It began with a massive GLBTQ march on the home of VP Mike Pence. The next night, neo-Nazis had to fight protesters in the street simply to leave the Deploraball. The Inauguration itself featured a parade which started hours late after protesters blocked all the checkpoints intended for entry by Republicans. Even with the delay most of the grandstand seats were empty. Instead of a parade before cheering supporters, the most common images of Trump's Inauguration were a burning limousine, police throwing grenades and firing pepper spray, and fighting in the streets. Not only the parade but the blockades that kept the parade seats empty were effectively ignored by the press. The following day, the Women's March staged a "parade" of their own against Trump, in what may have been the largest protest in all US history.
It is likely that this sort of thing stiffened the spines of anti-Trump members of Congress, Federal judges, and career government officials. Thus, programs Trump expected to implement in weeks such as the Muslim Ban, Obamacare repeal, and his Berlin Wall on the border got hung up in court for months, died in Congress, and encountered an incredible degree of pushback in all places. Trump tried to ignore reality, attempting to impose his Muslim Ban within days of his Inauguration. The airport protests erupted and within days an empowered Federal judge issued an injunction. It took Trump over a year to get past that and impose what he had hoped to do in a week.
Thus, a parade upstaged by chaos in the streets just days after massive GOP losses in the 2018 midterm could effectively end the effectiveness of Trump's presidency. For instance, Trump's nomination of Kavenaugh for the Supreme Court might well go down in flames if he was not already confirmed. A lame-duck confirmation by defeated GOP Senators in that climate would go over very poorly, and it would only take one reversed GOP vote to stop it.
