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1. "Remember the old days of General MacArthur and General Patton, and these great generals,” President Trump once told a crowd. So, yes, let’s remember the old. Let’s go back to 1932.
2. That year, a deeply unpopular Republican incumbent faced angry protestors—unemployed veterans, calling themselves the Bonus Army—on the streets of Washington. He sent for the army to clear them out.
3. It was July. The president ordered tanks into the streets of D.C. And under the command of MacArthur—the six tanks led by Major Patton—the army evicted the crowds of impoverished veterans and their families. It turned bloody. 
4. There have been tanks in D.C. since then. They drove past FDR in the ‘30s, to celebrate Army Day. They were parked in a public square in 1941, for Boy Scouts to inspect. But the Bonus Army—a president deploying armor against his own citizens—sticks in my mind.
