This weekend’s grand military parade in Washington marked the Army’s 250th anniversary, providing a boost to national pride while countering the negativity of anti-Trump protests led by the Democrats.

America has the mightiest army in the world. It’s something to be proud and patriotic about. Why not celebrate? 

The event was quite the spectacle, featuring historical uniforms from the Revolutionary War, 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles, and 50 helicopters in attendance, along with a robot dog and drones.

Beyond showcasing our troops and their impressive equipment, the parade served as a cautionary message to potential adversaries, especially considering the current global tensions, including the threat of conflict with Iran.

“Time and again, America’s enemies have learned that if you threaten the American people, our soldiers are coming for you,” the president said in a brief but stirring speech, which lauded the grit of America’s soldiers without mentioning Iran or any hostile nation by name. Nonetheless, the warning was clear. 

“Your defeat will be certain, your demise will be final, and your downfall will be total and complete because our soldiers never give up, never surrender, and never, ever quit. They fight, fight, fight, and they win, win, win.” 

The Army’s day 

Here was the unmistakable echo of the moment almost a year ago when candidate Trump rose to his feet after surviving an assassin’s bullet, blood streaming down his face, fist raised, and uttered the immortal words “Fight, fight, fight” — which led him, of course, to “win, win, win” to the never-ending chagrin of the Trump-deranged. 

But that was the only self-referential moment in the parade. The crowd spontaneously sang “Happy Birthday” to him at the end, but Trump seemed content to let the Army be the star that day. 

Of course, his detractors sneered that the parade was a self-aggrandizing display to satisfy his ego because it coincided with his birthday. 

But Saturday, June 14, really was the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States Army in 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of ­Independence. 

“There was an army before there was a nation” was the motto of the day, something worth remembering. Another way of putting it is that there would have been no nation without an army. 

“Peace through strength” is not possible without the military. 

June 14 was also Flag Day, commemorating the adoption of Old Glory as the official national flag by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. 

It was providence that Trump’s 79th birthday also was June 14. Providentially, too, the forecast bad weather did not rain on his parade, even though Minnesota’s weirdo Gov. Tim Walz wished it would. 

In any case, plans for celebrating the Army’s 250th birthday were already in the works under the last administration, but Joe Biden would have had a couple of tanks, maybe a fitness event and probably a drag display. Whatever he decided, it would have been an embarrassment. 

Biden is the reason the Taliban threw their own military parade with our equipment after his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, so Democrats should really have kept quiet rather than rail against Trump’s parade as a “vulgar,” “authoritarian” abomination and a waste of money, as if they ever cared about that. They do know a thing or two about vulgarity, it’s true. 

But the estimated cost of Saturday’s parade, $25 million to $45 million, is a steal, considering the military spends nearly $2 billion a year on recruitment, money down the drain during the woke Biden era. But now recruitment is soaring; targets for the year were met in just the first five months of the Trump administration. 

This success is not what the Hate America First crowd wants us to focus on. 

So, the Dems and their militant proxies staged a series of protests-cum-riots across the country Saturday to take attention away from the military parade, using various branding efforts, the most preposterous of which was “No Kings.” 

What a flop. The irony of shouting “No Kings” at a parade honoring the Army that freed America from a king seemed to be lost on them. 

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‘Don’t feel like king’ 

Trump made a mockery of “No Kings” without even trying when he joked to reporters asking about the protest. 

“I don’t feel like a king,” he remarked. “I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.” 

From Alex Padilla and Alexander Vindman to Maxine Waters and LaMonica McIver, all the Democrats have are ugly stunts and a compliant media. 

California Sen. Padilla’s performance on Thursday, when he disrupted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s LA press conference and had to be forcibly bundled out by the Secret Service, was designed to add fuel to the Democrat narrative that Trump is a dictator. 

But Padilla is a big man and was moving toward the podium, where the diminutive Noem was speaking, and interrupting her. It was clear he had bad intent. What was the Secret Service to do during heightened tensions but protect their assigned politician and remove the threat? 

The murder two days later of a Democratic politician in Minnesota by a suspect linked to Gov. Walz brought home the threat hanging over all our political leaders. Shame on Padilla for causing the ruckus. 

Vindman, a “Hero of the Resistance” in the first Trump administration when he triggered the first impeachment, was similarly unhinged. He took to X last week to display his toxic id: “f–k off you fascist b*tch,” he tweeted at Noem last week. 

Democratic New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver was so violent and out of control during a protest outside a Newark immigration detention center that she has been indicted on federal charges for assault and interfering with immigration officers. We all saw her unhinged behavior on video. Quite unseemly. Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters doesn’t know any better, even at the age of 86. She tried to force her way into a federal immigration detention center, requiring National Guard intervention to block her path. 

Dems are simply bitter and angry because Trump won back the presidency and is winning over their former voters, day by day. The more the country does well, the more vengeful they become. Alex and Alexander and LaMonica and Maxine were perfectly content when President Pudding Brain and his grifter family were in the White House, handing control of our borders to criminal cartels who brought in untold thousands of terrorists, killers, rapists and gangbangers. They loved that. 

But now that the border is closed, inflation is under control and blue-collar wage growth is at record highs, they have lost their minds.