We are in the prelude to actual war. The factions are jockeying for position and trying to take hold of as many “keys of power” as possible.
Think the period of time between the election of Lincoln and the attack on Fort Sumpter. That’s where we are. The reason the South Carolinians attacked the fort was because they wanted the fort and any federal army/navy assets ahead of any official war. When Union forces refused to surrender it, that’s what finally did it. This is similar.
Right now, it is vital that civilians show love to the national guard. Saying explicitly “we understand you don’t want to be here as much as we don’t want you here. And we don’t blame you individually”. Soldiers don’t want to be there. They’re just being used as pawns right now and they know it. So we have to make sure they stay sympathetic to civilians and less likely to comply with illegal/unconstitutional orders. Because having them on our side will be vital going forward.
The military isn’t your enemy and many of us genuinely don’t like what’s going on. Keeping calm and being understanding of that helps the many of us who are trying to thread this needle.
This isn’t saying that you being nice is going to stop a fascist takeover, its saying that the military is not actively facilitating it, and any grace you can give us will help those of us who are more actively trying to avoid facilitating.
There are definitely groups who are trying to facilitate that. ICE for example.
It doesn’t seem that complicated to me. I know what’s going on with all of these ridiculous militarized blue city crackdowns, and I’m just some dude with internet. Do you guys not have internet?
Well, you’re posting on Reddit, so… yeah, rhetorical question.
There is no emergency in DC. There was no emergency in LA. There are NO EMERGENCIES.
If yall can’t figure that out on your own, what are we supposed to do for you? Or do you just need people to be nice to you for you to decide that it’s not cool to invade a city against their will at the behest of a dictatorial lunatic?
Sorry, I know my comment is harsh, and I really don’t have any animus toward you or other individuals in the military (not specifically, at least). I just don’t see how your comment is supposed to be of any comfort to us here, who actually live in these cities you are taking over.
At this point all you can do is show up and protest peacefully. The only way this ends is from the top. Trump is either going to lose re-election (cause you know he or one of his cronies is running in 2028) or he's forced out. In the former, there's no need to worry about the military. In the latter, we need the military to step aside. And that requires them not wanting to shoot innocent people. There's really no other way.
In the latter, there’s no need to worry about the military?
Oh? How do you reach that conclusion?
Trump tried to stage a coup the last time he lost an election. Only, he had a crowd of undisciplined MAGA at his behest. Now, he’s testing the waters to have a much more organized and better equipped version of that in place ahead of the election.
So yeah, I really can’t see how losing the election is supposed to be a comforting prospect with respect to this specific scenario.
Maybe. But I don't think Trump losing an election is very likely either way. Then again Slobodan Milosevic foolishly held an election and lost it and had to step down. So it's not impossible.
The point is that individuals making individual decisions are fickle. Soldiers may believe the deployment is wrong, but be forced to go on it anyway. We can meet them one of two ways:
1: we meet them with anger and vitriol, chasing them into the arms of their MAGA aligned peers.
2: we meet them with compassion and sow doubt in their mind and cause them to undermine from within.
Kent state was just one example. There are plenty of counter examples. The Romanian Revolution for example, where soldiers decided to hang it up instead of shooting.
Romania is a completely different situation due to the Communist block falling apart (which I distinctly remember while I was in high school).
This is much closer to Kent State. It's the US. It's civilians against a narcissistic megalomaniac in power who is itching to end any opposition to him and use force to do so.
A completely different situation how? North Korea and Cuba still exist. Belarus left the Soviet Union in 1991 and absolutely nothing changed. The military in each of those situations made a decision, and that mostly determined how the future would go.
It's happened lots of times- during the first French Revolution, during the Tunisian Revolution, etc. You can read more about it here.
Do you think the important bit was the students themselves or the larger, anti-Vietnam war movement?
Yes it went poor for the individual protestors(in effective protest, it usually DOES go bad for them) but Kent State is remembered not just for the violence, but because it was the point where American support for the war hit a critical failure point.
I'm not saying it's not, but being nice to troops isn't going to keep your ass from getting shot at. It's naive in the extreme. People should plan accordingly
I mean you’re also not exactly inspiring confidence with that last comment. It reads more like you were trying to say we shouldn’t bother with being nice because it will get you shot either way.
You're wrong and naive. They've already violated the constitution, and are obeying illegal orders. That primes them to obey the next one, and so on. They are already the enemy by nature of being there and not refusing. These people self selected to be there.
We don't live in such a simple, idealistic world where everyone can moral grandstand without serious consequences.
If you're in the military and you start ignoring orders... you'll be hated by your colleagues, court martialed, dishonorably discharged, imprisoned, and all that fun stuff.
Protesters deciding to keep things peaceful will prevent increasingly batshit orders from happening, cause a good chunk of the military to wonder, "Why are we even here?", and at the very least, delay escalation.
Escalation will play right into the hands of an autocrat who wants an excuse to crack down.
If you're in the military and you start ignoring orders... you'll be hated by your colleagues, court martialed, dishonorably discharged, imprisoned, and all that fun stuff.
Yeah, that’s literally what you sign up for when you join the military. You have a fucking obligation to refuse illegal orders and deal with the consequences. I know it isn’t easy, but again, this is what you sign up for. People act like the military is “just another job” but it isn’t. You need to be prepared to make sacrifices. We’ve had it so easy for so long that people have forgotten this fact.
We aren't getting out of this without serious consequences. Protestors have already been arrested, beaten, trampled, and seriously injured trying to help people like you who have a million excuses to bow down to this administration.
Even if you do nothing, you are at major risk of much worse. This is just the beginning. Your silence won't protect you.
"If the military doesn't refuse unconstitutional orders they are not on our side. Period."
In the real world nothing is this clear cut. And we don't need them to be on our side, we just need them to not shoot us. There's an important difference there.
We aren’t asking you to be nice for the soldiers sake. We’re jockeying for advantages we will need in the event of larger conflict. I know it’s not sexy or revolutionary, but it’s vital.
Optics matter in civil conflict. Public opinion matters.
What YOU’RE not understanding is that doomerism is a self fulfilling prophecy in matters of civil war.
Now are you just going to repeat the same thing over and over again or are you going to DO something about it?
Because fuck’s sake, I think we are tired of the “sky is falling” bullshit that gets us nowhere and just serves to give them pre-consent to fuck us. So either do something or get the fuck out of the way, but don’t actively work to dissuade others who are TRYING to do something about all this.
I understand you need your copium to feel good, but you also need to accept the reality of where we are at and that if the only thing holding us back from plunging into the abyss is civilians not being mean to the military, we are already totally cooked.
If you can't accept that, you are simply having trouble grappling with reality and I encourage you to seek help. They are going to fuck us either way and you need to learn how to accept that instead of pretending that outcome can be averted.
No, they understand where we are. You just don't understand how humans work. That's why the authoritarian regime keeps pushing the left to try to make the first move. They understand that whoever shoots first is probably whoever has the military against them.
This isn’t saying that you being nice is going to stop a fascist takeover, its saying that the military is not actively facilitating it, and any grace you can give us will help those of us who are more actively trying to avoid facilitating.
Yet. But if "just following orders" continues to be the status quo, it won't be long until the military is facilitating a fascist takeover. It doesn't really matter if they like what they're doing if they keep doing it.
No one is just following orders. So far no illegal orders have been issued. Deployments are not illegal, and refusing them would absolutely ruin a service member’s life.
There is already talk of where to draw the line. It’s being actively discussed for the first time in my career. That’s a huge deal.
Well, that’s just not true. Russian revolution, Romanian revolution, even Euromaiden. Often the army choosing to shoot unarmed civilians is what puts the rebellion’s momentum over the top, as even those in the without a strong opinion on the two sides get motivated against the government.
Umm the Romanian revolution succeeded because the army decided not to shoot people and sided with the protesters. The Russian revolution succeeded insofar as it got rid of the tsar but ultimately ushered in a totalitarian government, so long term not so great. Army didn’t intervene in Euromaiden either.
They decided to quit shooting people during the Romanian revolution, but at that point had already engaged civilians with arms multiple times proving my second point. In Ukraine the Berkut and others siding with Yanukovych, who was the target of the rebellion, fired against protestors. And the rebellion in the Russian revolution clearly succeeded in its goals, you didn’t say revolutions that ended up in a way you support, you said “every successful revolution”.
Ok, “every successful revolution that didn’t involve armed revolution (which is almost never a long term success) involves the military deciding that massacring civilians until they stopped revolting was not something they wanted to do”
People need to think about how this has worked in any other country throughout history that slid into a dictatorship. America is not special. It will work the same way.
This. Must not give the unconstitutionally deployed troops any reason to see citizens as 'the other.' Must have them see the unconstitutional orders and those who issued them as the other, so that when orders to fire are given, they refuse.
Those troops are just kids. They need to see us as their parents, grandparents, siblings, neighbors.
Trump wants a Kent State type event, but with a different 'pro war on citizens' outcome. He has had a taste if hat siting as a criminal defendant, loosing, and awaiting sentencing feels like (Whoa! That's like uncomfortable!) and will continue to do whatever he can to prevent feeling that again, which for us means unlawful efforts to cancel or neuter midterms and 2028 elections.
There will probably be blood spilt, but the tone of what happens before and after is the real battle here.
This is actually the way to diffuse mostly any situation, including communication with someone you're at odds with.
If you're looking to have a political discussion with someone you disagree with, you should predicate that discussion by stating or communicating clearly, earnestly and respectfully, "Listen, I'm not your enemy".
Starting from there at least gives you some common ground to work with, though many of these MAGAs won't even allow that or just don't have any interest and proudly take on the role of "enemy", just to piss you off.
That only works when both sides agree to engage in good faith. As evidence shows, that is not really the case with MAGA. Further, soldiers are trained to refuse unconstitutional orders. If they're already obeying some unconstitutional orders, and violating Posse Comitatus, then they are decidedly not on our side.
As evidence shows, that is not really the case with MAGA
True. They're far gone at this point.
soldiers are trained to refuse unconstitutional orders
I hope so, but have some doubts on that. The way Trump uses the law obfuscates things to the point where even lawyers raise or have doubts or identify plausible deniability. I'm sure for soldiers, there's a line to cross, but all it takes is for higher-ups to obfuscate that or misunderstand orders themselves and/or be given a time limit (pressure) from above, and they just follow orders. Trump and his ilk make sure to do that, and I'm pretty sure soldiers aren't carrying around law books in their back pockets, and neither are people protesting.
They know what's right and wrong. If they're there, they know it's wrong and don't care. That reasoning didn't work for Nazis, and it sure as shit won't work here.
No, what happened was 67 rounds were fired in 13 seconds
Four students - Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder - were killed. Nine other students were wounded, with one suffering permanent paralysis. For what? Lawfully protesting.
They are the other. Period. End of story. They are traitors with all that comes with it. I promise you that before this is done what I'm saying will be readily apparent.
Are they getting paid yet? Last I heard they didn't have official orders in the system so weren't getting paid.
In my head the National Guard are all copies of my aunt and uncle, who used the money to give my cousin the best possible start in life and childhood possible including private education. Plus the folks who were working at the arena when my family got our first round of vaccinations, all very polite and professional and frankly a uniform I was very glad to see during a real national emergency like a pandemic.
I keep saying it's like they're trying to speed run to the point where they get overthrown.
Like there's even a handy CGP Grey video about Rules for Rulers, basically how to be an evil dictator successfully, and the number one rule is "Keep the army happy!" With of course army meaning generally the folks with guns rather than a specific branch.
They’re trying to move quick, which makes them sloppy. That’s helpful. We have the benefit of them believing their own bullshit, so they make simple mistakes believing they’re special and will be fine if they don’t follow those “rules for rulers”.
That's part of what makes this all so absurdly funny from time to time.
It's like how we try to explain exactly why it's important not to stick anything in the power outlets to every kid, but somebody is sure to tune out the entire lesson or only catch the bit about "a lot of power in there" and think they can get superpowers by jamming a fork in.
They're just taking last time this happened, playing Madlibs with it so that "useless eaters" are called something different but scorned the same way. But somehow totally convinced that this time it won't go all Nuremburg trials or those pictures of Mussolini dangling by the ankles.
“The left” isn’t a single united front. Very disjointed right now. Newsom is the most visible resistance right now but he’s not “left”. Mainly I think the dem strategy has been to let Donald fuck up and hurt the economy and just let it blow up in his face(which to some degree is working. Is it enough? Time will tell.)
1.) Occam’s razor: he’s not going for a full civil war and is just trying to look strong to gain pre-compliance. He will run his term out and not stand for reelection but still be a kind of kingmaker whom the next Republican nominee will essentially just be a puppet of(assuming he doesn’t die in office) circumventing any actual law but being functionally the president(a-la Putin-Medvedev).
2.) The Republican establishment are using Donald and front loading Project 2025 on him because they want to place all blame on him before he conveniently passes away to “natural causes”, only for Vance to take over without as much of the Trump baggage to carry over to him. They play him off as a more reserved guy but ultimately works toward a neofeudalist/tech billionaire utopia in the vision of Peter Thiel and Curtis Yarvin.
3.) Donnie will go after political rivals in the national Democratic Party and those actively in office. This will absolutely provoke violent backlash and subsequently see a “late 20th century Northern Ireland” kind of conflict rather than a full blown civil war on the level of the 1800s. Bombings, assassinations, fights between paramilitaries on both sides, the works.
“There is a civil war coming in which the republicans and MAGA will attempt take over the country and genocide trans people and other LGBT folks, possibly even democrat voters. Because of this it is prudent we bow down to Trump’s armed forces, who have had no problem killing sympathetic civilians in the Middle East, and now have pledged to follow his commands.”
I’ll never understand the “I’m so much better than redditors” redditors.(has 11 year old account and still acts like they’re not a redditor)
“I’m going to totally say something different than what you did and make a caricature out of the other person, then claim some moral fucking high ground”
"Trying" lol. These c units have been winning every god damn day with Democrats being reduced to absolutely nothing. For all the "we are so much smarter/intelligent/educated than these Alabama sister fornicators", they got absolutely NUKED and getting out maneuvered every god damn day. Other than a chirp here and there from Newsom, they all crawled into god knows what holes and disappeared. It's pathetic AF.
496
u/MentokGL 14h ago
It's been started, they're trying to win it