Trump's Birthday Parade Isn't a Harmless Military Spectacle
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
— W.H. Auden
The last time I was a guest at Donald Trump's birthday party, it was a relatively tame affair in the Crystal Ballroom of one of his sprawling, financially troubled Atlantic City casinos, the Castle. It was 1990, Trump was turning 44, and a replica of a jet from his failing airline, the Trump Shuttle, adorned a stage beside reproductions of three sagging casinos he had also mismanaged.
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