Tell him that he had a tiny crowd size at his expensive parade.
Tiny crowd at Trump’s military parade. Quite the turnout…
SAD!pic.twitter.com/NcNvEjw4rF
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) June 14, 2025
For an event that shut down much of central Washington D.C., closed key roads, and reportedly cost up to $45 million, the promise of a display of America’s military might — that just coincidentally happened to fall on Trump’s birthday — didn’t exactly draw out legions of his fans. Instead, the crowd of supporters, servicemembers, curious locals, and military-adjacent spectators who braved the oppressive heat and humidity of a post-thunderstorm D.C. managed to just fill out their allotted side of the street over several blocks in front of the White House, with plenty of room to spare.
In front of the central stage, a crowd befitting a midsize concert gathered in view of Jumbotrons. The lawns surrounding the Washington monument — which have hosted countless inaugurations, protests, concerts, and gatherings — were largely unused overflow space.
When the TV broadcast showed the crowd risers along the parade route, they were sparsely filled. The National Park Service issued permits for 250,000 people for the National Mall festival and the military parade. An aerial parade of historic military aircraft flew above the National Mall, traversing a course from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Memorial that — despite clear anticipation of crowds by event organizers — was more empty field and food truck line than crowd.
Though rock music blared on TV, the parade itself was eerily quiet. One video posted on X shows tanks squeaking past nearly silent crowds, sounding like a grocery cart in need of grease.
In the weeks leading up to his birthday and the parade, Trump told close associates that protesters were going to try to overshadow the military parade, including in media coverage, in D.C. and elsewhere, and that he was determined not to let that happen, a source with knowledge of the matter and another person briefed on it tell Rolling Stone.
I will give him this, that he was right about protesters trying to overshadow his parade.
That was the crowd attending the anti-Trump protest in Idaho.
This was San Diego.
He’s an unpopular president. He’s hated.
They overshadowed his parade— and succeeded!
“Fake news”.
Hynkel’s parade was much more impressive:
Well that’s encouraging. It may be that the US population is realizing what a rancid turkey the present prez is, that bodes well for the future at least.
Also, good show in Idaho! Some former colleagues are working there and sometimes I worry as they are living in one of the reddest states… a turning of the tide?
The marks, perhaps, are finally realizing it. The rest of us knew he was shit before he was elected the first time around.
It’s not often I can say nice things about my home state, but you go Glen Coco!
Whoops, I meant “you go, Idaho…”
To quote the immortal words of Nelson Muntz:
HA-HAW
John Morales @ #2 — Perhaps we should call it “KayFabe News.”
I saw something a few days before the parade discouraging protests in Washington or around the parade to avoid a showy confrontation that Don-the-Con could exploit. Based on an interview I saw, he was fully expecting protests in Washington. So, triple disappointment for Donny: the weather wasn’t great, few people came to his birthday bash, and there was no big protest at the bash. The protests happened all over the country, and as far as I’ve heard there was no violence.
Incidentally, any word on the actual headcount for his bash? So far I have found nothing…it takes a while to cook those numbers, I guess, but one site puts it at well the 200,000 planned for.
A couple of reports I read said they had one million people attending the No Kings rally in Boston! If that’s true, it is mind-boggling that so many felt such disgust and absolute hatred for one man posing as their dictator.
He has to be absolutely beside himself that this event held for his glorification turned into an embarrassing shit show. I, on the other hand, loved it.
I just returned from an overseas trip, so I thought I’d catch up on the DC parade. PBS is showing it complete on their website (I’m not crazy, I scrolled through it quickly.) I come from an Army family, and served for two hitches myself, and all I can say is that was some of the most raggedy-ass marching I’ve ever witnessed. But that reenlistment ceremony really stuck in my craw. I was literally quivering with rage as Trump, the draft dodger, read the enlistment oath to the gathered troops. “Have a great life” (suckers and losers.) It was just too bizarre for words.
Just saw this post:
That’s apparently drawn from this BBC story: The ‘3.5% rule’: How a small minority can change the world.
Would that it were true, but I wonder how close the MAGA crowd and their allies are to their own 3.5%.
There’s a freeway overpass near me in Marin county that gets very little traffic, but there were a 5 or 6 people standing on it holding signs up to the southbound traffic.
And this No Kings event happened at Ocean Beach in San Francisco.
I actually saw a shot someplace of a soldier holding a drone above his head. That does not give a good impression of US military power.
If there had been mass protests at the Trump parade I suspect he would have gotten onstage and told the soldiers to attack the protestors.
robro–
As I drove home from Dulles yesterday, there were people standing on an overpass over I-95 with No Kings banners and American flags, waving at the river of cars passing below. I flashed them with my headlights. I looked in my rearview and saw a guy from Ohio shaking his head and making a sour face.
I am so glad to see the massive turnout for ‘No Kings’. His fascist toy soldier parade was pitiful. And, it is obscene that the expense for that crap was put on us as taxpayers. This country won’t be civilized enough to live in until the ‘tiny mushroom taco’ and all the magat cockroaches crawl off and die!
Here’s another view of the Ocean Beach SF event. Note the coordinated movement of the flag. If that seems small, keep in mind it’s only one of the many actions in SF itself, and there were other protests in cities around the Bay Area. This local TV news station puts the number at “tens of thousands” in the Bay Area.
Next weekend is a big one in SF, of course: The 2025 Pride Parade. I’m sure there will be lots of “Fuck Trump” messages in that event, particularly given Trump’s insult to an actual war veteran, LTJG Harvey Milk.
Although I’m not really a fan of ‘The Lincoln Project’, I’m guessing that they’re working on TV ads, showing multiple cases of individual “No Kings” protests which outnumber the official Trump parade turnouts. And frankly, I wouldn’t count the military servicemen who had to be present at Trump’s event as being in the same category.
And 11 million at the No Kings protest? I’d be surprised if there wasn’t hundreds of provocateurs mixed in, all vainly trying to instigate something to discredit the movement in the media.
The violence at the No Kings protests was very low but not zero.
Some of the major violence was…right wingnuts attacking the marches and gatherings.
In SLC, someone fired into the crowd and seriously wounded one person. He was captured and subdued by an unarmed protester.
A guy in North Carolina intentionally drove his pickup truck into the crowd.
Hit one person but no serious injuries.
There was one car hit and run in San Francisco but it is not clear from the news reports if this was an intentional terrorist attack.
Considering the number of people at 2,000 marches, how peaceful they were is remarkable. IMO, peaceful protests are always more effective than violence.
I’ve seen total numbers reported as an estimated 5 million to 8 million. That is a lot.
raven @18:
Those attacks were unfortunate. But they failed to drive many people away from the protests, and failed to make those who were legitimately attending the events look bad by doing so. The MAGAts would have loved to have seen those in the No Kings protests in heated arguments or throwing punches, using them to say that all of the protests were based on irrationality and violence. The fact that I have yet to see any such examples, in my very limited research, suggests their attempts at discrediting the protests ultimately failed, which is commendable towards those who attended.
So, are we agreed that Trump’s incessant bluster is overcompensation for his tiny… crowd?
A question from a furriner from Europe.
I am told the US constitution bans sending US citizens in exile, and that it requires “due process” for people that have been detained.
Is this literally true, or has the Trumpster found loopholes?
According to The Salt Lake City Tribune
The person who was wounded has died. They appear to be victim of “friendly fire” directed at a gunman who attacked the crowd.
birgerjohansen @ #21 — The courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled repeatedly that “due process” applies to everyone in the US, even aliens. As far as I know there is no provision for exiling an American citizen but I’m not sure the Constitution is explicit about that. Dumbfuck and his gang haven’t found any loopholes, other than they are just ignoring the courts. (They did finally return that one fellow they sent to El Salvador illegally but immediately charged him with something.) Anyway, the GOP Congress won’t impeach him and the GOP Senate won’t remove him from office, so we’re stuck with him until one of several things happen: he goes off the rails so far that they have to invoke the 25th amendment which has a provision for dealing with an incapacitated president, he dies from natural causes, or he dies from non–natural causes. After that we’re stuck with JD Vance who is so venal and incompetent there’s no predicting what that would mean.
look at Seattle’s NO KINGS march: https://mastodon.social/@Decad3nce/114684213005505348
@#21: There was a court ruling (sometime in the 1950s, I think) that sending a citizen into exile came under “cruel and unusual punishment” and was therefore unconstitutional.
San Diego impresses me. That is the reddest urban area in California. There are some very large military bases there, including Mare Island.
I’m so glad Joni Ernst lived long enough to endure that parade.
I think a new circle of hell has been invented.