Trump wants the military to throw him a parade on the Fourth of July

The idea came up as Trump spoke with French president Emmanuel Macron as the United Nations general assembly met in New York Monday.

Trump told the press he was impressed with the Bastille Day parade he saw while visiting France, noting, “To a large extent because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July 4 in Washington down Pennsylvania Avenue.” He added, “We’re actually looking into it.”

Trump: “We’re actually thinking about, 4th of July, Pennsylvania Avenue, having a really great parade to show our military strength.” pic.twitter.com/sowDJdNvaY

— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 18, 2017

TRUMP: It was one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen. It was two hours on the button, and it was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France. […] And to a large extent, because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July Fourth in Washington, down Pennsylvania Avenue.

I don’t know, we’re going to have to try and top it. But we had a lot of planes going over and we had a lot of military might, and it was really a beautiful thing to see. […]

But I came back, and one of my early calls were, I think we’re going to have to start looking at that ourselves. So we’re actually thinking about Fourth of July, Pennsylvania Avenue, having a really great parade to show our military strength.

This isn’t the first time this behavior has surfaced. Emails uncovered by the media showed that Trump’s inauguration committee was “seriously considering adding military vehicles to the Inaugural Parade.”

The transition team also requested tanks and missile launchers be included in the parade as well, but the requests were all turned down by the Pentagon for being, among other things, “out of guidelines.”

Military parades have, in recent history, been more associated with authoritarian, oppressive regimes like Josef Stalin’s Russia or Kim Jong-un’s North Korea.

Trump did have a parade in his honor on Inauguration Day, though it was not well-attended, especially compared with his predecessor’s inaugural parade — a fact that upset him so much, he wasted taxpayer dollars to try to prove his was bigger than President Barack Obama’s. It wasn’t.

Trump has notoriously voiced admiration and envy of the dictatorial powers held by leaders in those regimes, and has expressed annoyance that dissenting voices resonate so strongly in American life, largely rejecting his world view.

Now he wants a parade to satiate his troubling obsession, no matter how bad it looks.