Troops in LA, tanks in DC. But Trump is winning the battle for public opinion

Telegraph

14 hours ago

There are thunderstorms forecast for the weekend, and protesters planning to rain on his military parade, but there's one piece of good news for Donald Trump on his 79th birthday.
Polling shared with The Telegraph shows significant support for the president's deployment of troops to clamp down on riots in Los Angeles, with the public backing his move by a margin of 14 per cent.
Initially, Mr Trump's decision to send the National Guard and US Marines to the city of angels had threatened to cast a cloud over his parade on Saturday, with soldiers detaining US citizens during what was meant to be a shared celebration of the country's military history.
James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners, which conducted the polling, said it showed the president was 'very much winning the battle of public opinion when it comes to the protests'.
He told The Telegraph: 'People are instinctively on the side of order and the police over what they see as concerning levels of unrest… Right now, the message is well-calibrated and his approach is garnering support.'
The legal battle is still making its way through the courts, in a tug of war between Mr Trump and Gavin Newsom, the California governor, but the president can notch up a victory from the public reaction.
However, another fight is just around the corner.
No Kings, a collection of protest groups, is planning a series of protests around the country to coincide with the parade, protesting against what it claims is Mr Trump's monarchical ambitions.
Millions of people will turn out in thousands of towns and cities across the US on Saturday, organisers said, to create a 'split-screen' between the displays of military strength in Washington while ordinary citizens turn out in opposition.
Among the 'No Kings' backers are Christy Walton, the Walmart heiress who is worth even more than Mr Trump, and has become a figurehead in pushing back on the president.
Mr Trump warned that any protesters assembling during the ceremony, which coincides with his birthday, would be met with 'very big force'. Protest organisers, wary of provoking clashes with law enforcement, plan demonstrations in every major city except the capital.
Ostensibly meant to celebrate two and a half centuries of military history, more than 6,000 soldiers dressed in uniforms ranging from the Revolutionary War up to the present day will parade down an eight-block route.
From the accounts trailed in the media, it should be an unadulterated display of US military might from a president who casts himself as the 'peacemaker-in-chief'.
A flyover of F-22s, the most advanced fighter jets in the world, is scheduled, while dozens of Chinook, Apache and Black Hawk helicopters will also take to the skies.
A B-25 bomber, which cemented itself in the nation's consciousness for the daring raids conducted in Japan during the Second World War, is expected to roar above the crowds, more than six decades after it was finally retired.
Armoured vehicles, including 60-ton Abrams tanks, will roll through the streets of Washington DC, in what was expected to be the largest military parade in the city since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991.
Trundling amongst some of the bristling display of firepower will be a 19th-century army escort wagon, pulled by mules and carrying a dog called Doc Holliday, who is part of the 1st Cavalry Division Horse Cavalry Detachment.
Attendees will have to navigate a security perimeter formed out of 18.5 miles of steel, 175 metal detectors and two security checkpoints.
The procession will start near the Lincoln Memorial, honouring Abraham Lincoln, who guided the nation through the US civil war in the mid-19th century.
It then passes memorials honouring Vietnam veterans and the nurses and women who served in the war, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, and the vast World War II memorial, where granite pillars representing the US states and territories surround a central fountain.
It then travels by the DC War Memorial, paying tribute to the city's veterans who served in the First World War, before finishing after the Washington Monument, the towering obelisk which marks George Washington's victory in the War of Independence.
Mr Trump is expected to view the parade from the Ellipse – a park south of the White House – and will be presented with the Stars and Stripes by the US Army's Golden Knights parachute display team.
But the spectacle has provoked fears about the politicisation of the military in service of the commander-in-chief.
Even though it is meant to commemorate the military, Monica Crowley, the White House's chief of protocol, has suggested the crowd should serenade Mr Trump with a rendition of 'Happy Birthday'.
And it coincides not just with the army cracking down on riots in Los Angeles, but soldiers at Fort Bragg this week booing the president's political opponents, including Mr Newsom, and the press.
Troops were screened before the event for loyalty to the administration and physical attractiveness, according to Military.com. A Pentagon spokesman said in response: 'Believe me, no one needs to be encouraged to boo the media.'
Kori Schake, a former defence official under George W Bush, called the timing of the ceremony ominous and said she worried about the 'normalisation of political involvement by troops'.
The seeds of Saturday's procession lie in Mr Trump's trip to Paris in 2017, when French president Emmanuel Macron treated him to a military parade for Bastille Day.
The president, by all accounts, was rapt.
He later instructed his administration to create their own parade, but his vision of tanks rolling down the streets of Washington never got further than a much-derided memo issued to officials.
Mr Trump often liked to boast about 'my generals' in his first stint in the White House, but top brass and ex-military figures pushed back hard on the suggestion.
James Mattis, the defence secretary at the time, who declined an interview for this article, declared he would 'rather swallow acid' than submit to a 'Soviet Union-like display of authoritarian power', according to an aide.
Paul J Selva, then vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared the display was 'what dictators do'.
Eight years later, the president has an administration that is firmly under his thumb and will do what he wants – dictator comparisons be damned. Many Republicans on Capitol Hill are giving the event a wide berth, but they're not speaking against it.
Then again, the national mood could sour if Mr Trump appears too triumphalist on Saturday, and if any naked displays of partisanship intrude on the military parade.
And Mr Johnson notes that his polling advantage in Los Angeles could fall away if authorities fall into the trap of 'appearing to define any non-white person as a threat' rather than focusing on their law and order message.
Mr Trump might be winning the battle of public opinion, but he hasn't won the war.