WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is getting the parade he wanted showcasing America’s milit power — but he’ll also be getting mass protests exposing the nation’s partisan divisions.
The tanks and artillery launchers rolling through Washington on Saturday will honor the Army’s 250th annivers, which falls on the day Trump turns 79.
About 7,000 soldiers will march. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to line up along Constitution Avenue on the co-birthdays and cheer. Trump is set to watch the spectacle from a viewing stand south of the White House.
But in Washington and in all 50 states, organizers will be staging protests that could dwarf the parade in size. A coalition of pro-democracy, labor and liberal activists is arranging a full day of counterprogramming to make the case that Trump is hijacking the Army celebration to venerate himself.
“The goal here is to deprive Trump of what he wants in this moment, which is a story about him being the all-powerful political figure of our time, and instead create a contrast with normal, everyday people demonstrating that power in this country still resides with the people,” said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the progressive group Indivisible, who is helping organize what participants have dubbed a nationwide “No Kings” demonstration.
If past protests are a guide, the participants could number in the millions, he said. A total of 1,800 rallies are expected, with events in each congressional district, he added.
Another group called Women’s March is also arranging protests to coincide with the parade, with a theme of “Kick Out the Clowns.” Organizers expect up to 5,000 people to participate in Madison, Wisconsin, alone, said Tamika Middleton, chief political and strategy officer of Women’s March.
“Nothing feels more absurd than the idea of this president having a massive milit parade on his birthday,” she said. “It feels surreal for many of us.”
NBC News reached out to the White House for comment.
On Tuesday, Rand Paul of Kentucky became the first Senate Republican to criticize the parade, citing the imagery. Showing off lethal hardware is something other countries do, not the United States, he said.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” Paul told reporters. He added that “we were always different than the images you saw in the Soviet Union and North Korea. We were proud not to be that.”
Trump isn’t deterred. Speaking in the Oval Office on Tuesday, he warned that protesters this weekend will face “very big force.” He didn’t distinguish between those who demonstrate peacefully or violently.
“And I haven’t even heard about a protest,” Trump added, “but you know, this is people that hate our country. But they will be met with very heavy force.” (At a news briefing this week, a Secret Service official said thousands of agents and officers will be on hand to provide security.)
The parade is happening at a fraught moment when Trump has drawn the milit — among the nation’s most trusted institutions — into a tense standoff in Los Angeles over his aggressive efforts to deport people living in the United States illegally. The Trump administration this week activated about 700 Marines to help quell demonstrations over his immigration enforcement methods, despite warnings from California officials that he is inflaming the situation.
The milit’s main purpose is to fight and win foreign wars, and it has largely retained its reputation as an apolitical body carrying out a national mission. Only in rare instances has the nation held milit parades: The last one took place 34 years ago after the United States defeated Iraq in the first Gulf War.
Saturday will open with a festival on the National Mall. Soldiers will be on hand to meet people and take part in special milit demonstrations.
The parade will start at 6:30 p.m. ET and follow Constitution Avenue from near the Lincoln Memorial to the Ellipse south of the White House. Workers have been laying down steel plates to protect the roads from the heavy tanks. Bradley Fighting Vehicles will also be on display, while dozens of helicopters will take part in a flyover. At the Senate Armed Services hearing last Thursday, Army Secret Daniel Driscoll put the cost at $25 million to $40 million.
Driscoll justified the expense as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fill up our recruiting pipeline with young Americans.”
Trump told NBC News in May that the cost was “peanuts compared to the value.”
“We have the greatest missiles in the world. We have the greatest submarines in the world. We have the greatest Army tanks in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. And we’re going to celebrate it,” he said in an interview with “Meet the Press.”
