As President Trump weighs military options against Iran this week, he can look with pride on the world’s greatest military and massive public support for his border security and immigration policies. Last weekend he did exactly that as he reviewed a parade of some 6,600 troops marching down Washington, D.C.’s Constitution Avenue in celebration of the 250^th anniversary of the United States Army. The actual day—June 14—also marked Flag Day and, coincidentally, the president’s 79^th birthday.

The parade came on the heels of protests in multiple cities against ICE and Trump’s policies, which were met effectively in most places by law enforcement and, in Los Angeles, by 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 U.S. Marines. An NBC News poll taken during those protests revealed that 51 percent of Americans agree with President Trump’s border control and immigration policies, which, as recently modified, call for 3,000 arrests per day going forward.

Saturday’s festivities could have been overshadowed by the so-called “No Kings” protests, a quickly organized series of demonstrations in municipalities across America that may have been arranged at least in part by left-wing groups providing finance and organizational resources. Regardless of their sources or intentions, the protests, which were not entirely free of violence, featured a great deal of vulgarity and some formulations riffing on former FBI director James Comey’s controversial “86-47” seashell configuration, which has been interpreted as a call to assassinate the president and for which Comey was questioned by the Secret Service.

In any case, the protests missed the historical point that the Army, which Trump saluted and praised that day, was founded in 1775 to defeat the forces of a king. The participants also appeared unaware that many other democracies have military parades without controversy. France has one every single year, in a tradition dating back to 1880 to honor both Bastille Day, a critical moment in the French Revolution of 1789, and the Festival of the Federation, a public event held in 1790 to celebrate much-hoped-for national unity. In recent years, the French parade has involved nearly 10,000 servicemen marching down Paris’s main street with impressive arrays of combat vehicles, military aircraft, and a gigantic fireworks display. Nobody protests.

The cause of the No Kings malcontents also raised questions about the rationality of Trump critics like Yale University history professor Timothy Snyder, who posted multiple sympathetic comments in favor of No Kings but says he is planning to move to Canada, a country with an actual king. More sensible men of the American left, including Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman and Washington Post columnist Max Boot, however, have commented favorably on the parade and President Trump’s public address celebrating the Army.

Regardless of these fractured opinions, once the parade started on Saturday evening television media of all stripes focused almost exclusively on Trump’s event and left the No Kings protestors, who organized no formal event in Washington, deep in the shadows.

News in the Middle East quickly pushed them out of the headlines altogether, but to the extent that they are remembered at all, it will be for exposing the American left as a largely disloyal opposition that places criminals, illegal immigrants, and even foreign countries ahead of the United States. “No Kings” is going away, but the Mexican flags held aloft by Los Angeles anti-ICE protestors will remain a powerful political image that fits the definition of insurrection.

But while complicit leftists were all too happy to beclown themselves in defense of this action, President Trump presided over a joyful event attended by crowds of happy, patriotic Americans that was made possible by servicemen with record-high morale in a service that has already exceeded its 2025 recruitment targets after many years of disappointment and decline. Meanwhile, the leaderless and demoralized Democrats languish with approval ratings well below 30 percent, a situation the petulant No Kings protest failed to reverse as President Trump’s policies continue and accelerate.