Phones, parades, protests, and assassinations

It’s TACO Tuesday! What will Trump flip flop on today?

The last few weeks seem to have lasted months. At the very least, they’ve packed months worth of news into a much shorter time frame. We are living out the apocryphal Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

One of the most curious bits of news was the announcement of the new Trump mobile phone service. ABC News reports that the Trump Mobile plan includes a gold (colored) “T1” phone for $499 and a monthly service fee of $47.45. The company touts that it is”based right here in the United States” and offers the “same coverage as the 3 nationwide phone service carriers,” Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T.

Graphic by ChatGPT

Trump’s phone service joins the list of Trump attempts to capitalize on his name by selling airline tickets, steaks, board games, college diplomas, digital currency, and who can remember what else? A slogan for Trump Mobile might be”Why give your money to some random corporation when you can give it to Donald Trump?”

As some astute observers have pointed out, Trump’s phone company announcement comes on the heels of Trump’s announcement of a tariff threat on [wait for it] mobile phones made outside the US. It looks as if Trump Mobile may be a blatant attempt to cash in on Donald Trump’s trade barriers.

I’m not going to say that the trade war is all about securing competitive advantages for the Trump Organization, but I’m also not saying that the two are unrelated. I am 100 percent sure that the Trump Organization’s managers have inside knowledge of upcoming policy decisions. I would also be surprised if some of the TACO (“Trump always chickens out,” and hat tip to friend of the blog Steve R. for turning me on to this acronym before it went mainstream) policy reversals weren’t timed to make money for the Trump Organization and his allies.

This sort of transparent grifting played a role in the No Kings demonstrations over the weekend. (And thanks to another friend of the blog, Chris Karr, for detailing his experience at the Chicago No Kings March.) The No Kings movement feels a lot like the Tea Party movement from 15 years ago. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have not yet attended a No Kings rally, but I was an early supporter of the Tea Party.) Both movements were broad based, grassroots movements with a jovial spirit, and both inspired people who don’t normally protest to peacefully take to the streets. I think that both also are very bad news for the party in power. Trump emphasized the turnout at his campaign rallies in 2024, but he don’t think he got numbers like No Kings, especially 15 months before the election.

No Kings was at least partially inspired to be a protest of Trump’s attempt to hijack the US Army’s birthday parade as a celebration of his own birthday. I am relieved to report that the Army handled this challenge beautifully by most accounts, keeping the parade mostly nonpolitical. In fact, rather than being a communistic show of military might, most of the parade seems (I wasn’t able to watch, but I have seen clips) to have focused on the Army’s history. Soldiers marched in period uniforms from the Revolution in one clip while tanks from World War II rolled past in another.

One of the few examples of politics in the parade is shrouded in uncertainty. The internet is abuzz with clips of soldiers marching out of step and lackadaisically, at times even walking or shuffling rather than marching. The reason for this informal marching style is unknown, but a leading theory is that it was a silent protest against the president and/or the parade.

I was never in the military, but I have some experience with marching as a former high school band member (as well as being the parent of a military member and JROTC cadets). I seriously doubt that the soldiers were out of practice or untrained in marching, which would be a failure in itself considering the high profile of the event, Whatever the answer, the marching was a far cry from the spit-and-polish goose stepping of highly formal parade soldiers from other countries and what Donald Trump probably wanted to see.

The Army kept the focus on itself, as it should have, even though this was difficult in a time when the president is pushing the military toward a law enforcement role in American cities. The parade was reassuring in that the Army did not give the Commander-in-Chief the show he wanted, but it gave the country something to unite around. I have to wonder if more heads will roll for that.

While the Army parade was reassuring, another event involving the Army was not. A few days before the parade, Trump held a political rally at Fort Bragg in which uniformed soldiers were used as props. For those who don’t know, DOD policy has traditionally prohibited uniformed military personnel from engaging in partisan political activities. Nevertheless, these soldiers, who were screened for both political leanings and appearance ("no fat soldiers" per Military.com), cheered Trump and booed his political opponents, including their former C-in-C.

This attempt to commandeer the Army as a partisan political tool is just as problematic as deploying soldiers to do police work in cities. It’s all part of the same attempt to politicize the military, which will end up breeding distrust in a popular institution. Pitting the military against political protesters, especially nonviolent ones, won’t be good for either the military or the country. For most of us, the pictures from Kent State evoke a cautionary tale rather than a recipe to follow.

Thankfully, despite the unprecedented turnout at the No Kings rallies, there was no violence from the marchers and no rioting. The marches were “mostly peaceful” with one of the few exceptions being a Utah man killed at the march in Salt Lake City when a man believed to be part of an event peacekeeping team fired at another man with an AR-15, killing a bystander. No motive is known.

That’s bad, but even more disturbing is a double assassination in Minnesota. Vance Boelter, 57, targeted two Democratic members the Minnesota legislature disguised as a police officer. He succeeded in murdering the former House Speaker and her husband while wounding a state senator and his wife. Boelter had other Democrats on his list as well. The assassin was a former Christian missionary in Africa turned security contractor. No motive has been released, but numerous outlets detail his strong anti-abortion beliefs and a target list that included only Democrats.

Condemning the assassination of legislators should be an easy move, but so far, it is one that Donald Trump and many Republicans have not made. Trump said the murder was “a terrible thing” but also noted that Tim Walz was “a terrible governor” in the same breath. Mike Lee, rapidly becoming one of the worst elected officials in politics, reposted a series of memes mocking Walz and the Democrats and alleging that the shooter was a Marxist. Christians, in particular, should distance their faith and churches from political murders and mayhem.

People on both sides need to condemn political violence no matter where it comes from, but especially when it comes from their own side. Sadly, it is often the case that own-side extremism is excused or rationalized.

The president seems more upset about the protests than the murders. Rather than calling for peace, Trump has called upon ICE to step up deportations from Democrat-led cities. Aside from the First Amendment implications of targeting law enforcement on political opponents (SCOTUS has already ruled that such ideological-based governance is unconstitutional), I suspect that the effect of attempting to push unpopular policies on cities and suburbs may be to harden resolve and spread opposition. The new strategy came days after another change in which the Trump Administration paused immigration raids on agricultural, hospitality, and food production industries due to blowback from business leaders and red state politicians. (Note: Between scheduling and publication of this post, the Washington Post reported that the Trump Administration has canceled the immigration detente for the favored industries. If you don’t like Trump policies, just wait a bit and have a TACO.)

The news is breaking fast and furious, and the backlash to Trump’s inconsistent and radical leadership is growing. Republicans may dismiss the growing opposition to Trump’s policies, but they do so at their peril. The increasingly effective opposition also risks sparking more violence from the right as Trump’s supporters become frustrated with our constitutional checks and balances.

These are interesting times, and they are far from over.

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