The Parade, the Profiteer, and the Powder Keg

Trump struts through DC while oil markets explode, vaccine science is gutted, and Marines are misused, all in service of the grift.

Good morning! By now, DC’s hotel owners were expecting a red-capped surge. Trump’s long-hyped Flag Day parade, part birthday party, part cosplay coup, part military fetish pageant, was supposed to draw MAGA pilgrims from across the nation. According to accounts on Bluesky, instead of overflowing rooms, there are vacancies, lots of them. Turns out you can’t command devotion with tank treads and Lee Greenwood Bibles alone.

The optics? North Korea. The attendance? Delaware on a Tuesday.

But while tonight’s 6:30 p.m. parade may limp along beneath storm clouds and hollow applause, the real thunder is rolling in elsewhere, geopolitically, economically, and institutionally.

As Max from UNFTR put it in a razor-sharp analysis, Trump’s foreign policy bluster has blown a hole straight through the one threadbare patch holding his economy together: cheap oil.

On Friday, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a massive preemptive strike targeting senior Iranian military leadership and key nuclear infrastructure. The attack reportedly killed top commanders and damaged uranium enrichment sites. Iran responded with waves of drones, and global oil markets panicked as the region tipped further toward war.

Prices spiked more than 12% in a week, the largest jump in years. West Texas crude soared to $74. Brent crossed $75. Why does this matter? Because Trump had gambled everything on artificially low energy prices to mask the inflationary pain of his tariff-fueled trade war.

“They built an entire economic plan on a foundation that can be shattered by a single military operation halfway across the world,” Max noted. And it just was.

With energy costs rising, summer travel in full swing, and tariffs jacking up consumer goods, inflation is poised to roar back — and Americans will be stuck paying for a war they didn’t start and a presidency they didn’t bargain for.

As oil prices surged and headlines flashed images of Iranian facilities in flames, a new wave of speculation began to rise — did the United States have advance knowledge of the Israeli assault? Or worse, did the Trump administration quietly support it?

Despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s public denials, Trump himself couldn’t help but bask in the afterglow, telling supporters he’d spoken “with Bibi and the Ayatollah,” and that “they just can’t have nukes.” No such conversation has been confirmed, by anyone.

According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, U.S. diplomatic movements in the days leading up to the attack may have functioned as cover, creating a smokescreen for Israeli operational prep. The implication? That the U.S. either looked the other way or deliberately helped obscure what was coming.

If true, the irony is almost too rich: Trump built his economic case on artificially low oil prices, remained silent as OPEC and Russia flooded the market, and sacrificed domestic energy jobs to keep inflation numbers pretty. Then, through either incompetence or complicity, he helped ignite the very war that sent oil prices soaring, unraveling the whole illusion in one fireball.

The Trump Doctrine: light the match, sell the hose, and blame the smoke on someone else.

If Trump’s economic strategy is collapsing under foreign policy weight, RFK Jr. is busy sabotaging public health from the inside. This week, the Department of Health and Human Services, under Kennedy’s direction, sent Congress a so-called scientific justification for revoking COVID vaccine guidance for pregnant women and children.

Medical experts called it what it is: junk science, cherry-picked data, and outright fabrications.

“I’d give it an F,” said Dr. Mark Turrentine of Baylor College of Medicine.
“I’ve seen better anti-vaccine propaganda,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The memo misquotes studies, cites unpublished and discredited research, and omits large-scale data contradicting its claims. One cited study doesn’t even mention the claim it’s used to support. RFK’s response? Fire the entire vaccine advisory board and stack it with anti-vaxx loyalists.

This medical gaslighting endangers millions.

While Trump parades through Washington with tanks, twirling batons, and a choir of trembling Marines, the real theater is happening offstage — in the dry, damning lines of over 230 pages of newly released financial disclosures. And surprise, surprise: the man who turned a failed casino empire into a political movement has done it again. The presidency, it turns out, makes a very lucrative vending machine.

According to CNN, Trump has personally pocketed tens of millions since returning to office, hawking everything from cryptocurrency to cologne. A $57 million token sale through his sons’ crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, leads the list, a name so perfectly dystopian it might as well have been generated by ChatGPT on ketamine. He’s also squeezed out $2.8 million selling Trump Watches, proving that time really is money, at least when your signature is etched next to the second hand. His Trump sneakers and fragrances pulled in another $2.5 million, and let’s not forget the $1.3 million he made peddling Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” Bible, because nothing says “Christian humility” like monetizing scripture for political branding.

There’s also a $1 million commemorative “45” guitar, because of course there is. And then there’s the evergreen fountain of Mar-a-Lago, which continues to spit out $50 million in revenue even as Trump assures us he has no involvement in its day-to-day operations, other than profiting from every wedding, fundraiser, and fascism-lite cocktail hour that passes through its palm-draped gates.

Melania’s in on the action too, cashing in with paid speeches and NFT sales. One talk to the Log Cabin Republicans netted her nearly half a million dollars, because nothing says “grassroots patriotism” like a luxury speech gig from the First Lady of Brand Optimization™.

And yet, amid all this windfall, Trump remains personally on the hook for more than $100 million in civil judgments. He still owes $5 million to E. Jean Carroll, whose second judgment for $83 million is pending appeal. Then there’s the $454 million he’s been ordered to pay in a New York fraud case, also on appeal, because when you’re Donald Trump, accountability is just another delayable invoice.

But none of that stops the hustle. Not the lawsuits. Not the scandals. Not the shame. The bibles keep shipping. The tokens keep minting. The watches keep ticking. The presidency keeps paying.

Trump’s genius, if we’re being generous, has never been governance. It’s marketing. He wraps the grift in a flag, calls it greatness, and watches the money roll in. And as long as his supporters see themselves in his gaudy, grievance-drenched empire, they’ll keep buying. Because in Trump’s America, every crisis is an opportunity, and every patriot is a customer.

Across the country and around the world, the backlash is here, and it’s not just loud, it’s global.

In Chicago, LA, Dallas, Omaha, and San Antonio, peaceful protests filled the streets with drums, signs, and chants. The message? No Kings. No dictators. And no parades for would-be tyrants.

In Mexico and Canada, solidarity protests are forming, echoing the call against Trump’s militarized presidency and RFK’s science denial.

What’s the Trump administration and the MAGA faithful response? Deploy National Guard troops. Threaten protesters with “graveyard death.” Governors like DeSantis and Abbott are attempting to provoke confrontation, hoping to justify repression. Florida even encourages drivers to “flee” through crowds. In San Antonio, city officials were left unaware as troops rolled in unannounced.

“They want chaos,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “Let’s not give it to them.”

The contrast couldn’t be starker. Trump parades through DC with tanks and trembling hands, while thousands gather peacefully to remind the world: democracy doesn’t wear jackboots, it marches, sings, and resists.

See you on the streets!