Painting a grim portrait if Donald Trump is re-elected, the New York Times is reporting there is every reason to believe the former president will make use of the Insurrection Act to deploy the U.S. military against American citizens during protests he finds objectionable.In a deep dive from the Tim...
They've also made it clear they want to cut military and veteran benefits. It's surprising they think the military will be absolutely loyal to them if they try to power grab and go full dictator.
I was a medic in the AF - it was a pretty even split of red and blue. Air Force medical is probably the bluest slice of the military there is, so overall there's definitely a strong lean red, but there's this weird notion of absolution when it comes to the military's political loyalty. Worse case scenario, Trump gets elected and attempts to 'execute order 66' ...the military will implode on itself with infighting, and my money's on one of the troops will take an opportunistic shot at him in accordance with their Oath of Enlistment's promise to defend the constitution against domestic enemies. Officers and civilian federal employees oath has the same language.
Yeah, but nobody who goes out of their way to advertise that they "support the troops" actually gives a shit about them. It's always been jingoistic performative nonsense.
If he loses and tries to claim a stolen election, project 2025 promising a bloodbath will not go well for any of them. Especially since Trump continues to disrespect military personnel at every turn.
I know there are some maga nuts in the ranks, but last I heard most generals have spoken out against the Trumpet crumpet.
My impression has been that the USA air force is perhaps the branch of the armed forces that is most controlled by high ranking evangelicals. Is there any reality basis to this belief?
There's a model for this. Basically, the reason you see dictatorships having a Republican Guard. Those guys are the loyalists that will do anything for the dictator and they get sinecure positions and help if they're hurt. The rest of the military is lucky to get rations because the dictator is worried about other people using them to end their reign.
The total transition would take awhile but Trying was already effectively using the Department of Justice and federal agents to run a Republican Guard during the BLM protests.
We have no idea how this would play out. Internal military use is right there in the coup playbook, and top military leaders know this and surely have privately considered it. Would they tell him to fuck off? Maybe. Whatever they would do, if it gets to that point, they're betting their legacies and their lives on their choice.
Alex Jones fixated on Posse Comitatus at the tail end of W's second term and Obama's first term, melding it with the idea that FEMA was ready to incarcerate millions of Americans in concentration camps after taking away hundreds of millions of guns, and turn cities into walled off, controlled ingress/egress zones akin to a prequel to Escape From New York.
And now here we are a decade+ after that, with him having been on the ground for and whipping people into an actual insurrection, supporting a fascist who seems to want to actually do things approaching fairly close to his fever dreams of years past, invoking what was once a huge piece of his 'plan for total enslavement' or whatever he called it.
Yeah, Alex Jones was actually right on some of the weirdo extremist things he was claiming being planned, it's just that he was part of those plans to begin with.
One of the problems with having your "truth tellers" rely on commercial sales to get the news out. Jones went from a guy who would mainstream generic fringe views of every conceivable quality to a guy who exclusively dealt in far-right conspiracy theories because that's where the money was at.
Joe Rogan is on a similar arc. The longer he churns out episodes, the more fascist his guests and his "common sense" views become. And then you look at his advertisers...
It's the same way with all the preppers and the people stockpiling an arsenal because "government comin' to get ya". For the most part, these are the people that will gleefully take up arms against their own countrymen if they are given the go-ahead from a fascist government. They won't fight against a fascist government.
There are more civilian owned guns than people in the US, and yeah, a lot of it is from basically people that are building a personal armory.
Hell, there's a whole commonly repeated mantra amongst many guntubers that 'one is none and two is one' that is basically a thought stopping cliche that also shames people into always purchasing a backup gun roughly equivalent to their primary 'just in case'.
When it comes to the people with personal armories... I guarantee that the vast majority (not literally all, but most) of those kinds of people are such assholes, such antisocial totalitarians in their personal lives that they either arent going to have any friends to use all those extra guns, or their 'friends' will just take one and leave after armory man is an asshole long enough.
Functionally, all these goobers have done is made the equivalent of loot boxes or mini dungeons with guns as the prize in an actual SHTF scenario.
As [New York Times] wrote, during his one term, the former president argued on multiple occasions to deploy military personnel to shut down protests and take control of the border. During a second term, he is not expected to have advisors pushing back.
The report notes, " ... as he has sought a return to power, he has made clear that he intends to use the military for a range of domestic law enforcement purposes," adding, "During his time out of power, allies of Mr. Trump have worked on policy papers to provide legal justifications for the former president’s intent to use the military to enforce the law domestically."
Arresting and silencing people who did not vote for him under the guise of combating domestic terrorism would be so easy. For as much as the right wing bad actors like to claim false flag every time something bad happens that they are to blame for, if Trump were to successfully orchestrate a false flag attack as president, he could have carte blanche to do whatever he pleased to his political enemies so long as the Supreme Court abdicated their responsibility to check his authority.
It really will be a terrifying time to live in America. The absolute best we could hope for with a second Trump presidency is him hunkering down for four years and do nothing after he gets what he really wants - all his criminal cases dismissed. That's the best case scenario. I shudder to think of the worst case scenario, which would be all-out civil war.
With the Supreme Court in his pocket, laws are more like guidelines anyway.
Or he'll probably be able to find a few MAGA-friendly generals (shudders) and start a nice little coup/civil war taking the US well into the banana republic territory and ask any opposition to this move to stop him: "you and what army?".
But things are looking good for him to lose badly (please vote sensible Americans) before drifting away as he keeps losing his mind. Some MAGA idiots will probably try something extremely dumb but hopefully too disorganized and half-hearted to lead to anything serious except getting arrested/shot by law enforcement.
When listening to american generals speak they are usually wise men who know a lot about a lot, including the constitution, racism, dictators and such. Maybe it's the optimist in me, but I have a hard time believing they would follow Trump down that path.
Unfortunately legality has no correlation with morality. What if the legal orders are to fire on US citizens? We've already seen what happens to legal and peaceful protestors when they're confronted by police.
Well now they have that supreme court ruling that the president can't commit a crime if it's an "official act" so genuinely who knows. But I could absolutely see someone like Trump using it to squash a protest and then jamming the whole thing up while the courts argue about it for the next 15 years or so.
So now that NYT has taken the gloves off for trump, I guess it's even more clear that all that soft pedaling before was just because they wanted Biden out. 🤔
Sure, but could any of those military guys actually get a presidential medal of freedom? Not a purple heart or anything that Trump has suggested is dumb, but a real award for winners like the presidential medal of freedom.
(opinions about these awards are from Donald Trump, on the record. /s from me.)
My impression has been the the USA air force is perhaps the branch of the armed forces that is most controlled by high ranking evangelicals. Is there any reality basis to this belief?
He's made his intentions to do shit like this clear on many occasions, and has built a cult of yes men around him. So either you're oblivious, lying, or misinformed.
I hate Trump with a fucking passion. But he was president for 4 years and did nothing like that. Why didn't he do it then? Why would he wait to be reelected instead of doing it when he actually had power?
In fact, I live in Australia, and months before the insurrection, I saw 5 mins of one of his rallies at the time and it was obvious he was trying to manipulate the election. They rally likely went on for an hour or more
He's now very openly manipulating people into thinking the justice department needs to be shut down or replaced. He's dropped hints plenty of times he wants an unlimited term.
There is so much evidence here. I'm not even American and I worked it out...
And then you find out the response from Kamala ends up being "Harris has 'made clear' she will turn the U.S. military loose on Trump if elected (and causes a second insurrection): NYT"
Ah, you must be one of those people who believes that just saying the thing in a certain light means it's wrong. One of those people who believes that whole "The uprising will be bloodless.......IF THE LEFT ALLOW IT TO BE". One of those absolutely moronic dipshits who thinks that because a Democrat is in power, it would be improper for them to use military assets to stop it.
Well, news for you and your kin: if you want a "civil war", guess which army you'll be fighting...idiots.
I think he is referencing the right-wing talking point of the week: Kamala "stole Trump's idea" (big air quotes) for not taxing tips. I'd be mad too if the otherside also supported my guys only popular agreeable stance 😤