ANN ALTHOUSE: Military parades are always political theater, but this one was purely a rhetorical game — set up and won by Trump. “Mediate scoffs — but Trump is right. Full credit due. I never thought this military parade was going to happen. Trump lured his antagonists into looking like they were attacking the military and then, in an effort to make him look bad, getting the price jacked up to an atrocious $92 million, which was just the move that he needed them to make to justify cancellation and then to blame them for obstructing what would have been a glorious patriotic display — a display that, as ever, exists only in the mind.”

It also underscores that the “normal” way of doing business today is absurdly difficult and expensive, making the argument for Trump’s break from today’s normality seem not crazy, but sensible.