Graham Parsons: “Up until a week ago, the blurring of the boundaries between the administration’s ideology and the military had not yet manifested as an attempt to employ the military directly on Trump’s—or the Republican Party’s—behalf. The steps taken until that point had been mostly symbolic…”

“But these symbolic expressions of military politicization have paved the way for that endgame—presidential orders that deploy the military for directly partisan ends. In just the past week, the Trump administration responded to protests against the enforcement of his immigration policies with military deployments. The likelihood that the administration will try to use the military against its political opponents is now very high. If that comes to pass, we will then learn just how successful Trump’s efforts to politicize the military have been.”

Adam Nagourey: “This country has faced — and survived — spasms of tension and disruption before. Debate and disagreement, as well as military and even domestic conflict, are knitted into its history and DNA, from the Civil War to the antiwar demonstrations of the 1960s (not to mention two World Wars, the assassinations of four presidents and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks).”

“But two things, many historians suggest, distinguish this moment from other troubled times in our past. The first is the sheer number of conflagrations taking place at once — not only in the United States but also around the world…”

“The second thing is Trump himself. At fraught moments like this, it normally falls to the president to step up as the reassuring figure, whether it was George W. Bush heading to downtown Manhattan after the destruction of the Twin Towers in 2001, or Bill Clinton going to Oklahoma City after a truck bomb destroyed a nine-story federal building and killed 168 people in 1995.”

“Not Trump.”

“President Trump prepared on Saturday to make a show of American military might with a parade of tanks, missiles and aircraft through the heart of the nation’s capital,” the New York Times reports.

“The celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States Army has already transformed into a test of wills and competing imagery, with demonstrators around the country decrying his expansion of executive power.”

“The parade is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. Eastern.”

Trump said in a post on social media that the military parade would go ahead “rain or shine.”

Nearly 2 in 3 U.S. adults — 64% — oppose the use of government funds for this weekend’s military parade in Washington, D.C., celebrating the Army’s 250th birthday, according to new data from the NBC News Poll.