Donald Trump’s plan for a military parade on June 14, 2025, officially to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army as well as coinciding with the president’s 79th birthday, is yet another indication of his affinity for authoritarian leaders and regimes.
Although the parade, which will include 6,000 soldiers, 150 military vehicles and 50 helicopters − and will temporarily close Reagan National Airport and cost more than US$45 million − is ostensibly to celebrate the military, the idea is pure Trump.
When pressed about his desire for the parade, the president has explained his reasoning for having the parade.
“We had more to do with winning World War II than any other nation. Why don’t we have a Victory Day? So we’re going to have a Victory Day for World War I and for World War II.”
While big military parades in Washington, D.C., other than immediately following a major military victory, are largely without precedent, there is another American city that has a much richer tradition of parades. That city is New York.
Trump vs. NYC
New York is a parade town. It’s also a city with which Trump has a long, complex relationship.
Trump was born in New York and began his business career there. Before Trump was a politician, or even a reality TV star, he was a fixture in the New York tabloids. His marriages, divorces, dating life and business successes and failures were splashed across more headlines than can be easily counted beginning in the early 1980s, but Trump was always presented as a clownish figure, albeit a very rich one.
In those years, continuing into the first decade of this century, the local media always presented him as gaudy, loud and not quite as business savvy as he claimed – hence the coverage of his bankruptcies.
While much of the rest of the country bought the Trump narrative that he was a brilliant businessman surrounded by beautiful women, doting staff and fawning celebrities, many New Yorkers never did.
New Yorkers, including me, remembered an earlier Trump who almost ran the family business into the ground over many years. Nonetheless, New York has always been important to Trump. Although he still is a well-done steak with ketchup kind of guy, while New York is a soup dumplings, or bagels and lox, or arroz con pollo, or even caviar kind of town, Trump still has a connection to this city and wants to be celebrated here.
Politicians, heroes and ticker tape
And the city celebrates with big parades honoring everything from sports championships, which used to be much more common for New York teams, to the U.S. winning wars, most recently following the first Gulf War in 1991. Additionally, New York has parades for many of the hundreds of ethnic groups that make up the city.
For decades on Thanksgiving Day, as they roast their turkey, prepare the stuffing and finalize preparations for the traditional feast, millions of Americans have watched the Thanksgiving parade, which is always held in Manhattan, frequently referred to as the Macy’s Day parade because Macy’s has long sponsored the event.
In many of New York City’s legendary parades, including those celebrating LGBTQ+ pride, the Puerto Rican Day Parade, St. Patrick’s Day, West Indian American Day and others, politicians march, often in the lead, alongside their constituents.
Some, like the Thanksgiving parade, have their own rituals, such as watching the balloons being inflated behind the American Museum of Natural History on the evening before Thanksgiving.
However, the most famous of all parade types in New York is the ticker-tape parade. Dating from the days when paper, not computers, dominated trading floors and offices, people would throw ticker tape and other papers out their windows as the parade passed through the Financial District area that became known as the Canyon of Heroes.
Not all New York parades are the same. Some, like the Thanksgiving parade, are simply fun and celebratory. Ticker-tape parades honor individuals or groups that have accomplished something significant, like landing on the Moon or winning the Super Bowl. They can recognize important foreign guests and dignitaries, while other parades celebrate the contributions of various peoples or groups of New Yorkers.
But New Yorkers never throw parades for their politicians and tend to favor drums and floats rather than tanks and soldiers at these events.
No ticker tape for Trump
While there are parades for all kinds of people and events in New York, there has never been a parade there for Donald Trump. There was a pretty massive street party in the city when it was announced that Trump had lost the 2020 election.
Although Trump changed his primary residence to Florida in 2019, Trump was a New Yorker for many years and like many longtime residents had the chance to see many heroes – Mickey Mantle, John Glenn, Tom Seaver, Derek Jeter, Eli Manning, Nelson Mandela, American war veterans, numerous foreign leaders and many others – feted with a parade down the Canyon of Heroes. Jeter was celebrated five times, John Glenn and Mickey Mantle twice.
It is impossible to know Trump’s motivations for pushing the parade in the nation’s capital. But we also know that he is a man who holds himself in high regard and craves attention. Trump will likely never get a parade in his erstwhile hometown, so Washington must be the next best thing.
Trump’s newfound parade fetish underscores his love-hate relationship with New York.
New York is the city that made him famous and made his family, primarily because of his father’s work, very rich. It is also the city that has repeatedly rejected Trump. It is the home of some of his worst real estate deals, the place where the business community lost patience with his antics and unwillingness to pay contractors, and where three times the voters turned out in huge numbers against him.
A Washington, D.C., parade celebrating an unappreciated New Yorker who years ago decamped to Florida and Washington is a pale imitation of the Canyon of Heroes, where New Yorkers honor beloved leaders, war heroes, explorers and their favorite sports stars. But it is all Trump has.
Lincoln Mitchell is a lecturer, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
