March on

By one of those strange quirks of fate today, Saturday 14 June 2025, sees two kings take the salute at military parades on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

The first (titular) king, Charles III of the United Kingdom, celebrated his official birthday in London this morning with the traditional Trooping the Colour parade. The second (would-be) king, Donald J Trump II of the United States of America, celebrates his actual 79th birthday with a military parade in Washington DC later today. No doubt they'll compare notes when they meet in September - at least they'll have something to talk about since Charles doesn't play golf.

Okay, so in reality Trump is an elected president not an hereditary monarch and the ostensible reason for the parade is not his birthday - a mere coincidence we're assured - but the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Continental Army in the Thirteen Colonies in 1775 under its commander-in-chief, George Washington.

Many Americans, though, are far from reassured, seeing Trump's parade as an un-American vanity project on a par with those beloved of authoritarian leaders around the world. Indeed, the protest action in the US against Trump's self-aggrandisement is the No Kings movement which is staging a national Day of Defiance. This mirrors the protest in London today by Republic, the anti-monarchist movement in the UK gaining an increasing profile at every major royal event - today's being no exception - with the cry "Not My King!".

Of course, military parades are a feature of both democratic and authoritarian regimes and it is reported that Trump was inspired to have his own after attending a Bastille Day parade down the Champs-Élysées in Paris in 2017. At the time the idea was quashed on grounds of cost but this time round Trump is not to be thwarted by the bean-counters, dismissing the $45million cost as "peanuts". (One might wonder why, if that were the case, he didn't pick up the tab himself but that, it seems, would be to miss the point.)

It is true that this will be the first such grand parade in Washington since President George HW Bush took the salute from the returning US military after the First Gulf War in 1991. The 250th anniversary of the founding of the US army seems an entirely appropriate occasion for a proud republic to celebrate its fight for independence. What sticks in the craw is that Trump, ever the arch-narcissist, should hijack an occasion for national rejoicing by personalising and politicising it, making it all about him.

The whole point of the rebellion by the Thirteen Colonies was to shake off the yoke of tyranny, renouncing the concept of hereditary monarchy and demanding democratic representation. Freedom was hard won then but the prospect the US faces now, as it approaches its 25Oth year of liberty and democracy, is a returned to dynastic rule, or at least presidency-for-life, like some banana republic. Small wonder the cry of the protesters is "No Kings!". The weather gods may yet have the last word, though, as the forecast is for thunderstorms.

Democrats (big and small D) can only pray it will rain on Trump's parade.

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