Donald Trump's desire to mark his birthday and honor himself by staging a military parade likely will cause visions of narcissism to waft through the capital

This 2017 military parade in France sparked Trump's desire for a similar event in D.C. (Getty)

 

Donald Trump's dream of staging a military parade through the streets of Washington, D.C., might be coming to fruition. How much would such an event set back taxpayers? Early projections are $92 million. And when might this take place? One date being tossed around is June 14, 2025. That just happens to be Trump's 79th birthday, so the parade might serve as Trump's present to himself. It would be fitting, given that about 200 mental-health professors stated in a 2024 letter that the president meets t the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic, antisocial, and paranoid personality disorder. These are “all made worse by his intense sadism, which is a symptom of malignant narcissism,” they claim.

Dr. Ava Green wrote about the letter under the headline "Trump accused of ‘malignant narcissism’ – but how accurately can you diagnose someone you’ve never met?" Green is a lecturer in forensic psychology in the School of Health and Psychological Sciences at City St. George's, University of London. Green writes:

Public figures have often been subject to speculation as to whether their behaviour meets a mental health diagnosis. Ahead of the US presidential elections, Donald Trump’s mental fitness has, once again, been called into question. This time, 200 mental health professionals signed an open letter warning the public of Trump’s “malignant narcissism.”

The letter, organised by an anti-Trump political group, argues that Trump poses “an existential threat to democracy” in the US. Citing the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the mental health professionals argue that Trump meets the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic, antisocial and paranoid personality disorder. These are “all made worse by his intense sadism, which is a symptom of malignant narcissism,” they claim.

Malignant narcissism is considered a combination of the above personality disorders, in addition to the sadistic urge to inflict pain towards others while gaining pleasure from doing so. For instance, the letter states: “According to first-hand accounts, Trump watched the violence he unleashed on January 6 for three hours on TV with ‘glee’, watching his favorite parts ‘over and over’ on ‘rewind’.”

Even though Trump has not been formally assessed by a psychologist as having any of the diagnoses put forward in the letter, it argues that it is “easy to see that Trump meets the behavioral criteria for antisocial personality disorder.”

The signatories argue that thousands of hours of media coverage of Trump’s behaviour have demonstrated a lifetime pattern of “failure to conform to social norms and laws, repeated lying, reckless disregard for the safety of others, irritability, impulsivity, irresponsibility and lack of remorse”. Other psychologists have come to similar conclusions.

Green does not wholly buy that argument. She writes:

How accurately can a mental health professional diagnose someone who isn’t their patient? Would you trust a diagnosis from a doctor you had never met? Probably not.

That said, there are some benefits to external perspectives when it comes to psychiatric evaluations. Studies show that other people (spouses, close friends, neighbours) often provide a more reliable assessment of someone’s personality than self-assessments, especially in relation to narcissistic features.

Research using self-report measures show that narcissistic people tend to distort their responses to enhance themselves. For studies of personality, self-reported answers along with a psychologist’s evaluation and assessments by friends and family would give the best insight.

 As for Trump's military parade, it already is drawing opposition, including from city officials in D.C. 

Under the headline "Trump Plans $92 Million Military Parade—Honoring Himself; Donald Trump is pulling straight from the dictator’s playbook," Hafiz Rashid, of The New Republic (TNR) reports:

Donald Trump may finally get his long-desired military parade through the streets of Washington. 

The Washington City Paper, citing an unnamed D.C. source, reports that the president has chosen June 14, 2025—the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army,  Flag Day, and coincidentally also his own 79th birthday—as the big day. If it goes ahead, the four-mile procession would go from the Pentagon in Arlington to the White House.

Seven years ago, Trump made his desire for a grand military parade well known after he saw a French parade in 2017, telling people at the time, “We’re going to have to try and top it.” But the idea got a lot of pushback from military leaders as well the D.C. government, who estimated that it would cost the military $92 million and the district over $21 million in public safety costs. 

Trump angrily abandoned the idea, accusing D.C. politicians of wanting “a number so ridiculously high that I canceled it. Never let someone hold you up!” At the time, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser shot down the idea on Twitter, saying she “finally got thru to the reality star in the White House with the realities ($21.6M) of parades/events/demonstrations in Trump America (sad).”

This time, though, Trump has overhauled military leadership, firing four-star Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as leaders in the Navy and Air Force,  including the top lawyers of those two branches and the Army. The legal firings presumably give Trump loyalists who would defend his parade if it is challenged in the courts. 

As far as D.C. leadership, Bowser and the rest of the D.C. government appear to be cowed by the administration out of fear that Trump will follow through on threats to take over the local government. Bowser chose to remove a Black Lives Matter memorial to appease administration officials and has stepped up the removal of graffiti and homeless encampments following Trump’s complaints. 

Trump has also set up a federal task force on D.C. crime fighting that does not include a single local official, indicating that he plans to keep interfering with how the city runs. That will now include a massively wasteful parade for his own ego, spending millions of dollars from both local and federal coffers despite claims that his administration is eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse. Will anyone push back against it this time?