Anti-Trump protests ace US President's birthday parade

TOI correspondent from Washington: Thousands of Americans rallied at energetic anti-Trump protests in hundreds of US cities and towns on Saturday in vivid contrast to a mostly insipid military parade in the nation's capital to celebrate the President's 79th birthday that coincided with the 250th anniversary of the US army.

Some 250 MAGA elites sang happy birthday to the President after a laborious parade interspersed with commentaries about the US army's heroics across 250 years. In a brief speech at the event, Trump, excoriated by critics as a draft dodger, talked up US military prowess and warned adversaries that “If you threaten the American people, our soldiers are coming for you. 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,” Trump said without any hint of irony to gloss over the US withdrawals from Vietnam and Afghanistan in humiliating circumstances.

Emblematic of the dysfunction in the second term of the President -- whose guests sat glumly through the low-energy fete -- was a World War II era Sherman tank that trundled painfully past him, the squeaking bogey wheels clearly heard above silence from scattered spectators on largely empty risers -- a "perfect metaphor for Trump and MAGA's hollow pageantry" in the words of one commentator.

Thousands of Trump supporters, many of whom traveled from across the country, praised the event for the flawless execution and patriotic fervor, largely ignoring demonstrators outside the security parameter gathered for the "No Kings" rally to protest the President's imperial policies.

At hundreds of such rallies across the country, activists and agitated voters chanted slogans lambasting Trump and his policies, carrying placards and posters that read "Electile Dysfunction" "Turd Reich" and "No Faux-King Way," among other witticisms. "If Melania doesn't want to live with him, why do we have to?" one poster asked, and another snarkily noted, "They are eating the checks, they are eating the balances"


Recent polls show a significant dip in Trump's approval ratings. A Quinnipiac University Poll conducted June 4–6 showed his approval rating at 38% and disapproval at 54%. A CBS/YouGov Poll conducted at the same time put it at 45% - 55%. Trump supporters who accuse the pollsters of a liberal bias point to other polls -- which liberals say hav a conservative sampling tilt -- showing the President having a 50+ approval rating.

Where is Asim Munir?

Scores of Pakistani expat supporters of incarcerated PTI leader Imran Khan, many driving and flying in from across America, gathered in front of the Pakistan Embassy in Washington to protest the purported visit of the country's army chief Asim Munir to US -- except he was nowhere to be seen.

The White House and Trump administration officials maintained that no foreign dignitaries, including Munir, had been invited to the Trump-Army Parade, but PTI supporters insisted he was in the US, with one activist stalking the embassy yelling at him to come out. "Where is Pakistan Embassy hiding Asim Munir ?... Pakistani-Americans are protesting ag. General Asim Munir’s visit: the perpetrator behind constitutional violations, stolen public mandate, and grave human rights abuses in Pakistan!" a PTI flyer said.

PTI activists also deployed digital vans in the US capital displaying videos and posters of Munir, calling him the "Butcher of Islamabad." Enhancing suspicion that Munir is indeed in US but did not attend the Trump-Army parade in Washington was pro-Munir billboards that surfaced in New York City's Times Square.