bitchy | It’s going to rain on Donald Trump’s dictator parade, literally & figuratively

This coming Saturday, June 14th, is Donald Trump’s 79th birthday. He’s making taxpayers foot a $45 million bill for a “military parade” in Washington DC. It’s also supposedly a celebration for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US Army. According to the latest weather reports, it’s supposed to rain on Der Führer’s parade. There’s a proverbial rain on Trump’s parade as well – large-scale, nationwide protests, which are being called the “No Kings” protests. They were being organized even before Trump escalated the situation in Los Angeles by sending in National Guardsmen and the Marines. The organizers say the protests will be huge:

Even before Donald Trump militarized his crackdown on pro-immigrant protesters in Los Angeles, a massive, nationwide demonstration was in the works for Saturday. The “No Kings” protests on June 14 have been imagined as a peaceful uprising to counter President Trump throwing himself a military parade on his birthday (which is also Flag Day and the 250th anniversary of the Army).

Trump is organizing spectacle befitting a tin-pot tyrant, including a procession of tanks, Howitzers, mobile rocket launchers and other war machines rolling through the streets of Washington, D.C., as military aircraft, including Apache helicopters, soar overhead.
Protest organizers have billed June 14 as a “nationwide day of defiance,” during which Americans across the country stand up to “reject authoritarianism” and reclaim patriotism in the name of democracy. “The flag doesn’t belong to President Trump. It belongs to us,” the protest website declares.

Trump has menaced demonstrators planning to show up at his military procession: “If any protester wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,” he said Tuesday. Anticipating such a reaction, protest organizers specifically decided not to target the Trump parade route; there is not even a No Kings event planned in D.C. They envision, instead, demonstrators “showing up everywhere [Trump] isn’t — to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings.”

Turnout at the nationwide demonstrations is expected to surpass the April 5 “Hands Off!” protests, which drew more than 3 million protesters to oppose the Trump government, then dominated by Elon Musk, who was imposing draconian cuts on federal services through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

“We’ve been planning the No Kings day” for months, says Ezra Levin, a cofounder of the progressive grassroots giant Indivisible, which is a key partner in a protest coalition that includes grassroots groups like 50501, civil rights organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, and many labor and environmental groups. Outside of a few anchor events — a large event is planned in Philadelphia, for example — the No Kings protests are organized on a viral, distributed basis, with locals in each community calling the shots. By last week, the number of planned events had already surpassed the April total.

[From Rolling Stones]

I expect there will be tons of protesters showing up and peacefully demonstrating across the country. That’s great. I hope these protests do something to ruin this stupid North Korean-esque plotline. The thin-skinned orange one is going to rage about anything and everything no matter what.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.