The “Salute to America” July 4th celebration on the National Mall in Washington DC featured a speech from President Donald Trump, military aircraft flyovers, tanks and fireworks. Many people criticized the president and the event including some college professors who published their disapproval on Twitter.
Before the national holiday, Harvard University’s Laurence Tribe bashed the president, saying that he saw a similarity between tanks in DC and the time prior to the Tiananmen Square Massacre where the Chinese government murdered dissidents.
“The resemblance to days before Tiananmen Square is chilling,” he wrote in response to an MSNBC tweet about the tanks reaching DC prior to the festivities. The thumbnail image of the NBC article link showed tank-lined rail cars.
Stanford University’s Michael McFaul remarked on a similar photo displaying tanks on rail cars, noting that he found the image reminiscent of USSR parades: “This photo reminds me of parades I used to attend in the Soviet Union. Not the right look for the 4th,” he tweeted.
Laurence Tribe, who advocates for the launch of an impeachment inquiry, wrote in another tweet, “For those wondering about tomorrow’s military parade: Trump’s grandiose tastelessness is not among his high Crimes and Misdemeanors. Nor is his self-indulgent ostentation. Nor, even, is his ineptly impersonating a pompous, two-bit, tin-horn saber-rattling autocrat.”
On July 5th Tribe continued blasting Trump: “In addition to a cleansing shower to wash out the swamp weeds left over from El Trumpo’s misappropriation of our proudly great military to wrap himself in its legitimacy yesterday, read an Independence Day Speech genuinely worthy of our better angels,” he wrote, suggesting that people read an Abraham Lincoln speech from July 1858.
In response to a tweet from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that said President Trump was holding the event to gain attention, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania professor Wendy Lynne Lee agreed and described President Trump as “a pathetic coward,” “an incompetent buffoon,” and “a cruel, morally bankrupt, monster.”
“That’s right, but not just any old attention. @realDonaldTrump wants to be seen as a ‘strong man’ even though he’s a pathetic coward; a great statesman, even though he’s an incompetent buffoon, an excellent human being–even though he’s a cruel, morally bankrupt, monster,” she declared.
