Day: June 13, 2025

At the present moment, our screens are full of images of rioting and violence, and both parties are straining to craft visual narratives based on those images to build popular support for their partisan policies and worldviews. American political leaders used to cultivate positive messages in public and conduct “oppo research” in secret. Now both parties accentuate the negative, all the time. The opposite party is the enemy: they are fascists, they are possessed by demons. The professed goal of both parties is to stop the other one from destroying the nation. The preferred remedy is to throw members of the “enemy” party in jail or even assassinate them. What is on our screens at present is crafted to promote partisan goals by inflaming negative emotions. Successful “visual arguments” (as Christopher Rufo calls them) help the parties seek power but cause great damage to the country as a whole. Edmund Burke wrote, “To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” But how can we love our country when the streets are full of burning cars, when thugs are looting and attacking public buildings, when law enforcement, backed by military force, is forced to use violence to maintain order?

A recent trip to Italy put some ideas in my head about how this problem might be addressed. Italy is not usually considered a model of political unity, given its history since the Second World War of revolving-door governments. But one thing Italy is very good at is generating a love of country that transcends politics. This is often misunderstood by Americans when they read in the news about the turbulent political cultures of countries like Italy, France, and Greece. What we outsiders often fail to appreciate is that fractiousness in the sphere of politics can be managed in those countries because they are held together by deeper bonds in the sub-political sphere. Bonds of affection and loyalty among citizens remain firm thanks to strong families, private and civil networks, pride in common achievements, and a beloved way of life. Usually, such bonds are invisible to outsiders, but on rare occasions, they come into public view.

On the morning of June 2, 2025, I awoke to find myself trapped. I had rented a serviced apartment near the Roman Forum, thinking to spend the end of a short research trip in Europe in the city that, for me, has always been a spiritual home. Though I have spent altogether more than seven years of my life in Italy, I had somehow forgotten that June 2 was the Festa della Repubblica, the public celebration that commemorates the creation of the Italian Republic in 1946. The apartment I had chosen turned out to be along the principal access lane for VIPs attending the great celebratory parade and had thus become, for a few hours, a high-security zone. Our little half-block had been cordoned off and was being patrolled by state police and army units. There was no entry or exit. In compenso, from the third-floor windows of my apartment, I found myself with a ringside seat for the great parade.

The parade took place between 9 a.m. and noon and began at the Altar of the People on the Vittoriano—the enormous white marble monument to King Vittorio Emanuele II, the first king of Italy, that dominates the center of Rome. A bugle sounded as the president of Italy, Sergio Mattarella, laid a wreath on the grave of the Unknown Soldier. This set a tone of solemn gratitude to those who had fought for Italian liberty. Then nine jets from the Frecce Tricolori, the national aerobatics team, roared over the monument, spewing fumes in the colors of the Italian flag: green, white, and red.

A large crowd had gathered in the Piazza Venezia in the bright sunlight to see the spectacle. The most popular sight, apart from the jet flyover, was the personal guard regiment of the president. These are known as the Reggimento Corazzieri (cuirassiers), all men over 6’4”, magnificently dressed in their ceremonial armor with plumed helmets. “A man is but an ass / who fights in a cuirass” sings the son of King Gama in Gilbert and Sullivan’s operetta Princess Ida, but for public ceremonial, no mere military tunic, no matter how many medals are pinned on it, can match gleaming armor.

After some short speeches by the principal officials of the republic, the presidential group climbed into a motorcade so as to take up its place in the reviewing stand at the center of the processional route—directly opposite my window. The route led from the Vittoriano down the Via dei Fori Imperiali, which had been cleared of traffic and lined with bleachers, to the Colosseum. That famous ruin was draped for the occasion in an enormous, 2000-square-foot flag of Italy. The parade, beginning with several dozen marching units, was to process from the Vittoriano slowly down the Via, then reverse direction and parade back from the Colosseum with a different set of parade units. On either side of the parade route lay the ruins of the imperial forums that long ago had been at the center of ancient Roman public life. Ancient Rome was a silent witness to the parade, with its own message: momento mori.

The whole spectacle was elaborately choreographed to include not just the numerous units of the Italian armed forces, which all seem to have their own marching bands, but representatives of all the various organs of state and Rome’s public services. No one, clearly, wanted to be left out. Also present in the procession were representatives of the European Union, NATO, the diplomatic corps of various nations, and Cardinal Archbishop Baldassare Reina, the vicar general of the Diocese of Rome. Each of the twenty provinces of Italy had units present. Every major Italian department of state had formations in the march, but there were also many private associations meant to embody the best of Italy. Italian Olympic medalists marched, but the Gruppo Sportivo dei Paralitici, Italy’s participants in the Paralympic Games, also rolled by in their wheelchairs. There were units from Italy’s various police forces as well as fire and rescue workers. Hospital nurses, wearing grim faces in response to recent budget cuts, formed a distinct body. The Roman police rode by in their blue-and-white vehicles, led by the chief of the Roman police, driving a Ferrari painted with police colors. That was an only-in-Italy moment! A group of students from a liceo classico (a high school for the study of classical languages) who had won awards for essays on ancient Roman history, came up to the reviewing stand and were handed their prizes by the president. Military parade music (another Italian specialty) was continuous, varied, and often exhilarating. The parade stopped only once, so that Rosalba Pippa, the popular singer known as Arisa, could perform before the reviewing stand the national anthem “Fratelli d’Italia” (which also happens to be the name of Italy’s ruling party, led by Giorgia Meloni).

There were a few short speeches by the Republic’s principal office-holders, but these stressed the common values of the patria—liberty, democracy, and peace—and reminded the crowd that the Republic’s legitimacy was based on a popular referendum held 79 years before. Decorum appropriate to the occasion was observed, partisan messaging kept to a minimum. Prime Minister Meloni spoke of the defense of common values, but got in a dig against “professors” who criticized the Bersaglieri, a unit of the Italian army associated with colonialism. The Bersaglieri, as Meloni well knew, are always among the most popular parade units, with their weird head-gear that looks like a small forest animal has been attached to it. The Bersaglieri also get attention by running, not marching, when they are on parade, creating a challenge for the embouchures of their marching band. So Meloni’s “profs” were a well-chosen target. The opposition party leader also kept things positive, contenting himself with a single dark allusion to the dangers of populism. None of this politicking was sharp-edged enough to disturb the good humor of the crowd. The dominant notes expressed were a heart-swelling love of Italy and gratitude to those who had made sacrifices to keep it free.

The end of the parade was marked by a spectacular performance by the Acrobatic Parachutists of the Italian army, who, jumping from helicopters, performed stunning aerial maneuvers while emitting smoke trails in the national colors. The three paracadutisti made a perfect landing at the end of the parade route, right in front of the Colosseum. A last attempt at crowd-pleasing was offered by the sanitation workers. They followed the marchers with a squadron of spanking-new garbage trucks, driven in coordinated, curvilinear patterns. They also picked up the trash.

So let me ask this: Why can’t we in the United States hold a parade something like the Italian festa for our upcoming celebrations next year of America’s 250th birthday? During his first presidency, around 2017, Donald Trump proposed holding a “big and beautiful” parade in Washington, DC to honor US military forces. The parade never materialized owing to logistical problems and cost considerations. It was predictably opposed by the usual suspects who complained that it would promote militarism and colonialism. In his second term, however, the president has swept aside any bureaucratic and ideological objections and scheduled, for tomorrow, a military parade in honor of the US Army’s 250th birthday, which just happens to be his own birthday too.

It is too late for tomorrow’s event to amount to more than a celebration of these twin birthdays. I live near Cambridge, Massachusetts, and can hear the grinding of teeth from here. But in the coming year, there will be time to plan an event that could draw broad public support and benefit our public life. A patriotic parade, reconceived more broadly as a positive celebration of who we are as a nation—our history, political creed, and our great achievements, our heroes—could help counteract the effect of the dispiriting scenes we have been witnessing in recent years. It could also be fun, and we could use some good humor in our civic life. Let’s work together, then, putting country ahead of politics, and celebrate next year the goodness that still fills our country and the good that our country can still do for its citizens and the world.