From sea to shining sea, that sound you are hearing is the collective noise of liberal heads exploding.

Donald Trump wants a military parade. On a "patriotic holiday." And the left is having a collective bowel movement.

In their pants.

The president wants the parade to honor the military and make Americans proud of their country. The reaction to this rather inocuous idea from the left has been entirely predictable.

Jeffrey Toobin:

“We’re getting more North Korean every day in this country,” he said. “You know, yesterday the president says people who don’t cheer are un-American and treasonous. And today, we’re going to start having big parades with tanks and missiles.”

Americans deserve to choose “whether they want to have that kind of country,” he argued.

“I mean, we have a country where we celebrate our troops,” Toobin said. “When they come home from battle in lower Manhattan and we throw ticker tape.”

He then used Trump’s own words to drive his point home.

“The idea in peacetime, simply to have tanks roll through the streets of Washington, that’s—to use a phrase that the president likes to use, in my experience, that’s in my experience un-American,” Toobin concluded.

Earth to Toobin: Americans did, indeed, choose to have "that kind of country." It's called an election and I guess you missed it in November 2016.

And despite Toobin's effort to rewrite the history of the United States, military parades, air shows, and turning warships into museums is as American as baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and pick-up trucks. 

The near hysteria shown by the left over the parade idea is misplaced. Trump got the idea for the parade when he watched Bastille Day ceremonies in France. And, as Powerline points out, since the highest aspiration of our republic should be to emulate France and other EU countries, you have to wonder why they're losing their minds over this.

But wait! Aren’t the French sophisticated Europeans of the sort that liberals want the U.S. to emulate? If they can have a military parade, why can’t we? No doubt liberals will come up with an answer to that question; it will be entertaining to see what it is. As Steve likes to say, get out the popcorn!

"Presidential historians" warned the Washington Post that such an overt display of military power was dangerous:

Presidential historians told The Washington Post that a parade “smacks of something you see in a totalitarian country,” and also warned that it could evoke nationalism instead of patriotism or could even stoke further tensions with North Korea. 

The White House official pushed back on those warnings, saying it would be “the opposite” of totalitarian, because it would be a “celebration of the men and women who give us freedom,” but also said it would be designed as a demonstration of America’s strength and a “warning” to the country’s enemies.

What makes the analogy to totalitarian countries bogus is that all dictatorships feature conscript armies. They insult our volunteer soldiers by comparing them to draftees.

The rabidly anti-Trump site Shareblue:

The reported plans have drawn anger from groups like VoteVets. “Trump just declared those who did not applaud him at the State of the Union ‘treasonous’ and ‘un-American.’ Now he wants the military to parade for him. This is not normal. This is not OK,” the group declared.

The egomania and authoritarian undertones are bad enough, but what makes this idea particularly galling is how poorly Trump has treated the service members he commands.

Trump has spent months insulting prisoners of war, attacking two separate Gold Star families, taking a disabled war hero’s Purple Heart, threatening to kick out troops based on gender identity or immigration status, and proposing to dissolve a program for homeless veterans.

And he has used the troops as a political football, feigning offense on their behalf to attack NFL players kneeling in protest of police brutality.

The left can bray all they want, but a military parade with all the hardware of war is not only a useful message to North Korea (and other potential adversaries), it's a great idea to remind Americans of the sacrifices made by those who serve - and just as importantly, their families. 

We have a professional army of unparalleled skill and courage. But this professionalism comes at great personal cost to the families and the men and women who serve. Constant training, regular deployments that take loved ones far away for months at a time, and always, the threat that a loved one will not return home. It is a "glorious burden" to carry and military families bear it without complaint.

Why not a parade to honor and celebrate these sacrifices? It's not "militarism." It's common decency to acknowledge those who protect our lives and our values.

So let the left rant. The rest of us will glory in a mighty display of American power and our committment to those who serve.