Trump Gets His Parade

Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue
And when the band plays “Hail to the Chief”
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no fortunate one

     ~ Creedence Clearwater Revival, “Fortunate Son”

 

If you’re not in the parade, you watch the parade. That’s life.

~ Mike Ditka

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Meanwhile, in Donald Trump’s White House…

 

“She thought I was handsome, right? She’s lying, right?”

“Of course she was Mr. President. You’re a very good looking man. Very distinguished.”

“She’s not that hot, you know. Not a ten. Not really a ten. Stormy is no Loni Anderson. No goddamn Vanna White. Frankly, I could have banged Vanna. People don’t know that. I turned her down, 1987 I think, I was nuts deep in famous ass then, as I am now, as you know. Princess Diana was calling at the time. A lot.”

“I’m sure the princess was calling, sir. Diana would have left Charles for you.”

“Fuckin-A right.”

In the Residence of the White House this sunny but crisp Saturday morning, President Donald J. Trump is venting to a seamstress and having some last minute adjustments made on his new uniform.

Today is his oddly-requested military-style parade. It will start at the Capitol Building, march down Constitution Avenue, hang a right on Pennsylvania Ave, and end triumphantly at the White House.

The custom military uniform is – by Trump’s insistence – modeled after one worn by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, former Libyan dictator. The President felt that style “showed power,” and was “pretty bitchin.” The jacket is a gold hue, with money-green fringed epaulets on the shoulders, and a matching green sash across the chest. Completely made up medals dot the entirety of the sash and jacket. None were real, let alone earned. There’s a medal pinned over his left man-boob for “Valor in the Face on Unfair Media Coverage.”

It took tantrums, threats, blackmail of Pentagon officials, crazy Tweets, and cooking the Federal government books, but the parade is happening. Every aspect and detail has been dictated by the President. Hardly anyone in the White House will say on the record the parade is a good idea, but with the constant barrage of negative press stories and weekly scandals, a rally in Michigan was no longer going to placate Trump. The staff needed something huge to please the boss. Thus, a goddamn military, mad-dictator-inspired parade on national television.

The First Pet, Trump’s beloved chimp Titties, walks into the room wearing an identical military outfit. Titties has added a gold and green pilot’s cap to the ensemble.

“Wow!” Trump says. “Look how beautiful she looks! Amazing. Really tremendous.”

Kellyanne Conway enters the room and says, “It’s time to go Mr. President, we go live in half an hour.”

“On every network?”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Discovery Channel? They have Shark Week, you know. I hate sharks.”

Conway pauses. “Not every cable network, Mr. President. The networks and all the news channels.”

“We shouldn’t have let CNN broadcast the parade. I hate that Don Lemon. My father would have called him an uppity coo-“

“We have to go, sir!” Conway says, saving the President from finishing the thought.

 

There are big crowds along Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues. Half are diehard supporters of Trump, wearing American flag t-shirts stretched over their beer bellies and red Make America Great Again hats. The other half are here to watch and mock the rolling dumpster fire. On the steps of the Capitol Building, crews from The Late Show with Steven Colbert, The Tonight Show, Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Late Show, The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, and other comedy shows are jockeying for position to film bits. Jimmy Kimmel Live’s brilliant “Donald Trump superfan” Jake Byrd character and his crew arrived at three in the morning to reserve a prime spot.

From a stage at the start of the parade route, President Trump steps to the microphone in his gold and green military uniform. “Ladies and gentleman, my fellow Americans, even the fake news media – look at them, everywhere – welcome to the Donald J. Trump Parade for American Greatness. We’re going to have the biggest crowd, the biggest audience, for a parade ever. Even bigger crowds than that weak Rose Bowl Parade they do every year.”

The President goes on to ramble for another twenty-five minutes about “no collusion,” a jag on some new polling that he pads the numbers by seven points, and how beautiful Titties the Monkey looks in her uniform.

“And now, ladies and gentleman,” Trump continues, “we have an exciting announcement. A revelation, really. The Donald Trump administration has a new mascot!”

For months, the President has wanted his own “Trump version of Mr. Met or the San Diego Chicken.” This was important for “branding.” Sources have told your intrepid White House correspondent the mascot had become an obsession for the West Wing staff, trying to please their volatile boss.

From behind a green velvet curtain steps the new mascot of the Trump White House. The crowd gasps. The costume is a sort of what you would see on a college football sideline, a bald eagle getup. However, the bird, a symbol of America, has been, uh … enhanced.

The bald eagle has enormous, heaving breasts, wrapped in a teal tube top that is adorned with the TRUMP logo in gold sequins. The eagle also sports a pink miniskirt, and wears a pair of seven inch high clear plastic platform stripper heels red, white, and blue flashing lights in the base.

The eagle mascot wobbles back and forth on the stripper heels and unenthusiastically waves small American flags in both hands.

Melania buries her face into her hands, unable to watch.

Trump bellows, “Introducing, the new mascot for our great country, Puss in Heels!”

The crowd gasps, murmurs, and barely claps, as if the President just presented a bucket of syphilis to be celebrated.

From under the mask of Puss in Heels comes a muffled voice. “Daddy, it’s hot in here. I can’t breathe.”

Trump covers the microphone and says, “Just wave the flags and bounce up and down, Tawny.”

“My name is Tiffany, daddy.”

For months, neglected daughter Tiffany Trump has begged for a White House job. Inside the humiliating mascot costume was the best her father has offered. She waves the sad little flags and quietly cries under the bald eagle mask.

The parade begins. The Marine Corp Band leads off the event blasting a medley from John Philip Sousa. Followed by ten minutes of rolling nuclear missiles.

Then it gets weird.

The first parade float is in the loose tradition of a Rose Parade entry, but instead of flowers covering the float, it’s folded one dollar bills. And instead of a covered wagon or a purple hippopotamus, the float is a 12-foot-long erect penis. Riding a horse saddle strapped over the balls, is 1991 Penthouse Pet of the Year Simone Brigitte who throws loose change from a paper McDonald’s bag into the crowd.

The parade’s public address announcer Scott Baio’s voice comes over the speakers lining the parade route, “Ladies and Gentleman, please welcome the pending diplomat to Germany, Gary Busey!”

Gary Busey staggers down the street warbling “Shipoopi” from the Broadway classic The Music Man. President Trump has never seen The Music Man, but he saw Peter Griffin perform “Shipoopi” on Family Guy once and thought it was funny. He almost laughed out loud.

Midway through “Shipoopi,” Gary Busey stumbles over to the special box reserved for New York and New Jersey Mafia gangsters that have given Trump good deals on concrete. A drug dealer called Tony Tracksuits by fellow wiseguys holds out a small mirror with three lines of cocaine on it. Busey snorts the three lines of coke in quick succession, screams “Cow farts are destroying the ozone layer!” then finishes the song.

President Trump is having a ball. He stands and applauds Gary Busey’s song stylings. Knowing the cameras are on him, Trump tries to change a news cycle narrative that has been bugging him. There are multiple reports and plenty of video evidence that the First Lady – who is clad in all black today – does not have a good relationship with the President. In a misguided attempt to convey there is still intimacy with his icy wife, Trump reaches over and honks her boob. The First Lady does not look pleased. On CBS’s coverage, America gets to hear Dan Rather use the phrase “stink-eye.”

The crowd and the television coverage settles down as the parade runs through a more traditional section. Half an hour of marching soldiers from all branches of the United States militaries, marching bands, waving flags, color guards twisting and flipping rifles, mounted soldiers on horses, varieties of military vehicles, rocket launchers, cannons, and whatnot.

What is missing? The tanks.

President Trump fought and fought to use tanks in his parade. For weeks he was obsessed with YouTube clips of North Korean and Chinese parades with their tanks rolling down the street. However, the State Department nixed the request for tanks stating “Consideration must be given to minimize damage to local infrastructure.”

After months of being rebuffed and delayed, Trump finally exploded at the Joint Chiefs in the Oval Office. “Fuck that! I want the goddamn tanks! Or you’re all fired! FIRED!”

Churning and gobbling the concrete of Constitution Avenue comes twelve rows of M1 Abrams M60 Patton tanks. The noise is deafening. Trump comes as close to leaping to his feet as is possible, bursting in applause, pumping his fists, and miming driving the tanks through an imaginary periscope. First Pet Titties the Monkey jumps up and down on her chair, screaming chimpanzee gibberish.

Eric Trump rides what he has been told is a real unicorn next to one of the tanks. It’s just a white Arabian horse with a horn glued to its head. Giggling like child, Eric waves to the crowd and yells repeatedly, “I got a unicorn! It’s my unicorn!”

Riding atop the last M1 tank is Don Jr., throwing Mardi Gras beads with the Trump logo on them to any woman that flashes him. And Ivanka sits in a gold chair that was bolted onto the tank waving like a beauty pageant winner. That’s the look the President is most fond of for his daughter.

President Trump’s military parade comes to a close. “Cherry Pie” by Warrant blares over the loudspeakers as the drunken and rowdy crowd dissipates.

 

 

Later that evening, as Trump closes his day with two strawberry milkshakes, he is infuriated the majority of the news coverage for his parade focuses on Eric believing he was riding a unicorn and the estimated billions it will cost to repair Constitution and Pennsylvania Avenues.

“Why are they raining on my parade, Melania? … Melania? Hello?”

 

 

Illustration by Mikey B. Martinez