I never wanted, nor did I ever anticipate, living under an authoritarian government. But you know what, I expected that, at the very least, if the United States was going to be dragged kicking and screaming into fascism, then gosh darn it, the once-greatest country in the world would prove itself to be the best at being the worst. These colors don’t run, etc., etc. Luckily—but also mortifyingly—that has not been the case.
Like, wow, has that not been the case.
On Saturday, Trump celebrated his 79th birthday and the U.S. military’s 250th birthday with a $45 million parade—you know, like the kind they have in North Korea. But if North Korea’s military parades are, let’s say, the Rolls-Royce of a dictator’s flex of unchecked power, then Trump’s attempt was more like a Shein children’s tricycle that, you realize upon delivery, is actually made of cardboard.
The crowds—if we can even call them that—were dismal; more people showed up outside a random restaurant in New Jersey to see Taylor Swift at Jack Antonoff’s rehearsal dinner in 2023. The sorry military “display,” which included 84 military vehicles and 6,000 soldiers, according to ABC News, made me assume Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stashed the majority of the budget in case there are any more boats that need de-wokening. (Also, has anyone seen him since Saturday?) And overall, the vibes—from the empty bleachers to Trump practically falling asleep—were weak and not very wannabe-dictator-y! Sad!
And Republicans’ humiliation stretched far outside the parade. Fox News interviewed a former intelligence officer who was drunk off her ass, and slurred, “most of the time, for the past quarter of a century, because of the mismanagement of the administrative states, they’ve been fighting these foreign wars.” You said it, girlfriend. Elon Musk keeps tweeting, “No gods or kings. Only man,” which I had to Google, but is apparently a quote from BioShock, which has a whole under-the-ocean class warfare storyline. And while a handful of celebrities were posting against the ICE raids in Los Angeles, Ryan Tedder (the guy from OneRepublic) posted the following on his Instagram story: “It’s a super bummer that instead of celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA ARMY and all those who have fought and died on our behalf… We’re protesting.” That is more embarrassing for Tedder than it is for Republicans… but if Tedder is the only celebrity on your side, it just feels like you’d know, deep down, that you’re on the embarrassing side.
So my question for MAGA is, really? This is a proud moment? A few groups of soldiers marching out-of-step behind some dinky-looking tanks in front of our second-oldest president, all sponsored by *checks notes to make sure the images weren’t AI-generated as a joke* Coinbase? If I’m George Washington, I’m not just rolling over in my grave, I’m digging a tunnel to a new one so my corpse can rest without having “George Washington: the guy who started the nation that eventually became the laughingstock of the world” hovering above my head for all eternity.
Since we’re a few weeks away from Trump’s six-month mark, Saturday kind of felt like the shriveled cherry on top of a melted milestone sundae. His administration so far has not only been defined by gross incompetence, but by humiliating fuck up after humiliating fuck up; from Mike Waltz accidentally adding journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a cabinet-only group chat to that same group chat texting fire and American flag emojis in celebration of war crimes in Yemen; from Musk giddily waving around a chainsaw on stage at CPAC, saying “I am become meme” to Trump and Musk’s very public falling out on social media, in which Trump said Musk was butthurt about Tesla not getting tax breaks and Musk firing back that the Epstein flight logs haven’t been released because Trump is all over them; from Trump gutting the Kennedy Center, pledging to make it non-woke, and suggesting Qatar could help fund some renovations to him giving a standing ovation following the Center’s performance of Les Misérables last week, clearly missing the pointing of literally everything.
Remember when the most egregious Republican snafu was Mitt Romney saying he had “binders full of women”? If a Republican said that now… I’d probably give them a thumbs up for supporting women in the workforce.
Trump, of course, thought his dumb parade was great. “Last night was a tremendous success with a fantastic audience,” he told reporters on Sunday. “It was supposed to rain, they gave it a 100% chance of rain and it didn’t rain at all. It was beautiful.” Meanwhile, millions marched in the “No Kings” protest that also took place across the country on Saturday to fight back against Trump’s obvious fascist fantasies.
At the current rate, this administration will churn out so many humiliating disasters and authoritarian overreaches that Saturday’s $45 million North Korean cosplay won’t even merit a footnote in the history of America’s descent into authoritarianism. Which is kind of a relief: Odds are I’ll die of secondhand embarrassment long before they get around to killing me for being a mouthy woman on the internet. USA!
GET JEZEBEL RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
