Profs hate Trump’s ‘Salute to America’ on Fourth of July

College professors expressed their resentment to President Donald Trump’s Independence Day celebration over Twitter.

On Thursday, Trump organized the “Salute to America,” a Fourth of July celebration that included a 40-minute fireworks display, flyovers by the Blue Angels, and tanks to celebrate American independence and honor the U.S. military. Trump even personally delivered an address as part of the celebration, in which he proclaimed the country’s greatness and continued to thank the military for protecting American liberties. 

College professors expressed their outrage over Trump’s “Salute to America” festivities, some going so far as to compare him to a dictator. 

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“The resemblance to days before Tiananmen Square is chilling,” Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe  said on Twitter. The Tiananmen Square incident happened in 1989, when the Chinese government suppressed and killed thousands of protesters.


“Celebrating militarism by parading tanks through DC is a horrible idea,” Columbia professor Anthony Zenkus tweeted. “Also, parading them through the Middle East for the past 16 years wasn’t such a great thing to do either.” 

The tweet also contained the hashtag “#BoycottTrump4thofJuly.”

“[Trump] wants to be seen as a ‘strong man’ even though he’s a pathetic coward; a great statesman, even though he’s an incompetent buffoon, an excellent human being -- even though he’s a cruel, morally bankrupt, monster,” Wendy Lynne Lee, philosophy professor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, said.

Political science professor from the University of Nebraska, Ari Kohen, placed the celebration in “solid second place” for the “biggest gathering of white nationalists in American history,” while English professor at Wabash College Derek Mong added that the celebration was “ego-serving” and “money-wasting.”

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“Professors are the most influential educators in American society,” said Gen Sanchez, a student at Tallahassee Community College, Campus Reform correspondent, and intern at Campus Reform’s parent organization, the Leadership Institute. “They are training the next generation of CEOs, teachers, leaders, and active citizens. Introducing such a strong anti-Trump and, quite frankly, anti-American bias is extremely damaging to the country and the virtues of freedom.”

Liberal social media users celebrated rain on the day of the event and even accused news outlets of photoshopping pictures of the “Salute to America” crowd, claiming that it was suspicious for so many people to attend the event. 

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @ethanycai