The coverage of Trump's parade reminds me of a story told by my SO. [View all]

This was from when she was a child.

She grew up in a small town--and I mean REALLY small. No traffic lights. Three churches. A one room public library. A public school "system" where one school housed K through 12 and the typical graduating class was maybe two or three dozen.

Every 4th of July they had a parade, which, as you might imagine, was rather on the small side. The school marching band and baton twirlers. The volunteer fire department. All the local veterans. The antique car club, the winner of the local beauty contest, the members of the town council--the town was too small to have a mayor. A state police car brought in for the occasion. The whole show lasted maybe a half hour if that--up main street in one direction ending at a park with barbecue and Bingo and such.

One year there was a woman there watching from the sidewalk who began to weep. My sweetie, who was not yet a teenager, asked what was wrong.

The woman, who was there visiting friends, said she'd grown up in Franco's Spain. Every public holiday in her hometown the military threw a parade with tanks, and armored personnel carriers, and soldiers in formation with rifles and bayonets. Marching bands playing songs celebrating "El Caudillo" -- the Great Leader. Everyone had to attend. Everyone had to cheer. If you were absent or didn't evince the proper amount of enthusiasm you had to worry your name might be reported to the authorities.

She was weeping because the spectacle of this parade in this small American town was so very different. So unlike any celebration a dictator would throw. So utterly lacking in militarism, so wonderfully unimpressive.

Granted, a lot of this had to do with the town itself, how small and rural it was. Still, I can appreciate the sentiment.

And now we have a president determined to be our own "El Caudillo."

The woman is probably long gone by now, but I expect, seeing today's spectacle in Washington that she would have wept again, this time for an entirely different reason.

I've been so lucky, as an American, to have escaped living under a regime such as Franco's, not to mention living under a Hitler or a Stalin or a Putin.

And it is sad and distressing to think so many of my fellow citizens seem willing to throw our system, flawed as it is, all away, and for what?

Anyway, just a story that came to mind as I've been watching today's events in DC, in Minnesota, and across the nation.

My own town had a "No Kings" rally that was amazing. Such a welcome uplift in an entirely depressing context.

Best wishes, everyone. Don't let the bastards grind you down,