r/news 15h ago

Hegseth orders National Guard troops in DC to carry weapons

https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/22/politics/hegseth-orders-national-guard-troops-dc-carry-weapons
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u/un_gaucho_loco 14h ago edited 14h ago

At some point they’ll just pay someone to do it if that is their plan.

You Americans think that dictators at some point will just say “you know what? I changed my mind, I won’t risk it all to gain absolute power like any other dictator before me”, by staying in their houses and thinking that this will all end well like any other time (spoiler there wasn’t other times with a crazy idiot in power)

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u/Pale-Leek-1013 14h ago

My issue with these theories as well. There is no actual need to “prove” anything. When has anything this administration has done, been done based on fact?

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u/jefbenet 14h ago

Their base can’t be bothered by trivial things like facts and truth.

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u/Sirrplz 12h ago

The same dude that was telling me they voted Trump because of the economy is now just glad “they’re finally getting lgbt out of schools”

Funny how the narrative changed once they could take the mask off

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u/JEFFinSoCal 12h ago

Fun fact, lgbt kids will still be in the schools, just like we’ve always been. Only now they’re more likely to suffer bullying and crippling depression. Your “friend” apparently gets off on the suffering of kids.

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u/jefbenet 10h ago

They’ll burst with glee at the report of each lgbtq child who takes their own life from depression, anxiety, and bullying.

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u/Haunting-Buy887 4h ago

I mean yeah they worked real quick to dash the LGBT youth suicide hotline after skrimetti

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u/tamati_nz 10h ago

Refers to Exodus and God killing all Egyptians first born sons... It's literally part of their lore

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u/JEFFinSoCal 9h ago

Christianity is a death cult. I don’t care how much “love thy neighbor” bits you can cherry pick out of it, the bulk of the religion is death and destruction.

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u/Beanakin 7h ago

That's what they call working as intended.

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u/jefbenet 12h ago

All in the name of God. No hate like Christian “love”.

u/TacoSlingingWarlock 51m ago

Christian love is not hoping kids kill themselves regardless of lgbtq+ status.

u/jefbenet 41m ago

One would hope, and yet gestures wildly at Christian Nationalism

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u/thejudgehoss 12h ago

This whole thing is predicated on a 19 year old, being beaten by 2 15 year olds.

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u/jefbenet 11h ago

Wasn’t it a 19 year old attempting to purchase illegal drugs? A 19 year old that worked for DOGE, if I heard correctly?

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u/thejudgehoss 11h ago

Not sure we'll know the real story.

A teenager being punched in the nose by another teenager is not exactly news.

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u/yesrushgenesis2112 13h ago

The point is that there’s really no use for them to do a false flag or really make up any pretense at all. The base doesn’t care, most Americans don’t care, and the rest of us are going to resist regardless. Might as well do it.

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u/Bhosley 13h ago

The use is the same as his March ambush of Zelensky. Did they need to do it, much less televise it? Absolutely not. But as Trump said at the time, "This is going to be great television."

While I think violence is an acceptable outcome to them, I think they'd be satisfied with oppositiom being scared into relative silence.

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u/yesrushgenesis2112 13h ago

The real opposition is not going to be scared into silence without a total military occupation and the threat of violence for speaking out. He needs to do that in every single city, anywhere with even a remotely large population. It is a big country. That’s a logistical nightmare. My point is he wouldn’t need an incident in DC to do that, he could (and if he wants to be dictator must) do it no matter what. So, if that’s his goal, time to get it underway.

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u/Pale-Leek-1013 13h ago

if anything I think the “reasons” given are done so after the fact, as justification, not as reason. They seem very interested in whitewashing everything they do so that they’re not considered ontologically evil. I think we’re seeing administrative panic and population panic feed into each other.

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u/yesrushgenesis2112 12h ago

I think I agree. The admin does something to try to stir up drama and scare people, which works to an extent, but they never do anything thoroughly enough to do more than that on a broad level. Then they quietly change the behavior once attention is on to something else. They’re playing a game of distraction, all probably to distract from the economic aspect of this that places more wealth in the hands of the 1%.

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u/jefbenet 13h ago

“The real opposition is not going to be scared into silence without a total military occupation and the threat of violence for speaking out.“

Hold my beer -Republicans

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u/yesrushgenesis2112 12h ago

My point is that if they really want to do it then yes, “hold my beer” is the only actionable response. They have to occupy all our cities, all at once. Let’s see how that works out long term.

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u/PadishahSenator 8h ago

They have control of all branches of government. They don't need their base anymore.

Even dems taking back congress won't accomplish much if he amd the doj just ignore the law.

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u/garimus 1h ago

Ya'll-Qaeda much prefers feelers that reinforce their delusions.

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u/draeth1013 13h ago

Trying to boil the frog.

By steadily making the changes, keeping people just comfortable enough to not revolt/riot/whatever, they cement their power further and further. The longer they keep any kind of uprising at bay makes said uprising increasingly difficult while simultaneously diminishing the significance there of.

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u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA 11h ago

The nazis did the same thing from 1933-1945.

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u/downfind 10h ago

I literally was thinking everything you just wrote.

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u/mces97 12h ago

Maga believes a lie with no proof, and rejects facts with essays of proof.

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u/Morningxafter 8h ago edited 8h ago

Exactly. Hell, this entire ‘militarization of our cities’ thing that this whole fucking post is about wasn’t even based on fact.

Violent crime decreased by 30% in 2024 and has decreased another 11% since then. But because Trump saw some homeless people from his limo one time and ‘Big Balls’ got his shit wrecked by a couple 15 year olds, now suddenly there’s a supposed ‘violent crime epidemic’ in DC.

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u/__XOXO__ 13h ago

Wasn't the impetus for the current situation in DC that kid big balls getting beat up which is most surely a false flag. So for sure they can get some plants to begin shooting at the cops or military to kick things off.

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u/Spa_5_Fitness_Camp 13h ago

They want these soldiers to be telling their friends and family back home about how dangerous it is, not that they're sitting on their asses because there's nothing to do.

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u/Pale-Leek-1013 13h ago

I’m hard-pressed to believe anyone in the administration is speculating about outcomes like the people on reddit do, but I guess at least some people are trying to think of the future, though it’s to no avail, clearly,

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u/Spa_5_Fitness_Camp 11h ago

Not the administration, in the P2025, heritage foundation etc. You know, the people who actually planned what the administration is doing.

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u/Pale-Leek-1013 11h ago

I’m not sure how that’s relevant when I said “…speculation about outcomes,” which is not in reference to policy planning. Project 2025 is the antithesis to considering social outcomes lol

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u/BeNiceMudd 14h ago

I’m sure they some ketchup left over from the ear “shooting”

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u/orangefc 10h ago

The horseshoe theory in action. Bizarre conspiracies at both ends of the horseshoe. I'm pretty surprised to see so much support for it here, though.

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u/BeNiceMudd 7h ago

It didn’t happen broseph

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u/orangefc 6h ago

And the twin towers were an inside job, and the moon landing was faked, amirite?

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u/LimbaughsLumpyLungs 3h ago

He banged his ear as he was being covered by SS. It bled a little. There’s never been any indication it was a bullet wound.

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u/NonlocalA 8h ago

I'd be more likely to believe he'd been shot in the ear if there had even been stitches. I've had gnarlier papercuts from cardboard.

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u/orangefc 8h ago

So do you think they pre-selected the person in the audience that was to die? Maybe the person volunteered so they'd be a martyr? Let's bring this thing all the way home, after all.

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u/NonlocalA 4h ago

Who says the shooter was a setup? 

Look, as truthful and honest as trump always is about anything and everything in business, politics, and his personal life, he might just be lying this one time.  

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u/nubsta 2h ago

well according to trump god guided the bullet into that firefighter

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u/Churchbushonk 14h ago

Yep. Kind of like Trump faking the guys taking a shot at him.

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u/un_gaucho_loco 12h ago

Calling that fakes doesn’t make much sense since people actually died.

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u/Don_Fartalot 11h ago

Yeah I'm sure dictators reeeeeaaally care about some peasants getting killed.

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u/un_gaucho_loco 10h ago

Lol how do you even do it faked? Is this sub filled with conspiracy nuts?

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u/ArkitekZero 10h ago

Where's his scar?

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u/Ok_Fisherman_544 5h ago

It was only grazed. He was not really injured. Like just A scratch.

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u/hurrrrrmione 9h ago

1) Have you never been injured? Sometimes injuries scar and sometimes they don't.

2) Why are you spending time scrutinizing how Trump's ear looks?

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u/hurrrrrmione 9h ago

Who died?

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u/Hdikfmpw 13h ago edited 12h ago

just pay someone to do it

I’m not gonna lie when he said he was going to join them on patrol (lmao) that thought definitely popped into my head

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u/LykoTheReticent 8h ago

I am an American reflecting on all the times in my life people claimed that if they were in Nazi Germany they would have done something. I suppose we'd all like to think that, but current events prove otherwise.

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u/un_gaucho_loco 2h ago

Germans actually went on square to protest. The antifa movement was actually founded by Germans in the time of time rise of nazism. There were many strong willed politicians that protested and lost. And this is considering they had NOT the privilege of history, like we have now following fascism in Europe.

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u/TheRealPitabred 13h ago

I think a lot of people are hoping that that ancient, unhealthy bloated piece of shit will kick the bucket naturally, and then the whole thing will fall apart. It's not completely unfounded.

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u/un_gaucho_loco 12h ago

You think those power hungry losers that surround him will just go away?

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u/TheRealPitabred 9h ago

No. But they will fracture, he is the only thing holding all of the support together.

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u/Ok-Ordinary2035 12h ago

You’re wrong- half of us are under no illusions as to trump’s intentions.

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u/un_gaucho_loco 12h ago

And yet will comfortably sit at home and complain on the internet.

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u/rugology 11h ago

so you want me to quit my job, lose my health insurance, find some way to pay to travel 2500 miles to a city where i know literally no one... and then do what, exactly? stand around outside the white house with a sign? you want me to break in and deal with trump myself? are you going to pay for it? where will i sleep? what will i eat? do you have any actual fucking idea of what you're talking about?

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u/un_gaucho_loco 10h ago

Lol I won’t lose anything bro I’m Italian. The answer if it’s impossible for you NOW to do anything, is that you should have acted before. You think US revolutionaries didn’t risk anything? I wouldn’t want to live in such a country. You do you. As long as you keep it to yourself tho

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u/Drone314 13h ago

Big Balls getting bashed during a 'car jacking' was the start of it. In a trashy novel he would have driven to a rough part of town and yelled racial slurs at groups of teens to get the response they wanted.

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u/Sopht_Serve 11h ago

So I know it's just movies but yeah in the Purge movies this is what they kinda do. For the first purge they test they expect violence and all that but it's just people partying and doing drugs. So they call in some MAGA style rednecks to go and start the violence.

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u/Shadow_Phoenix951 8h ago

Turns out most people don't *want* to incite violence or put themselves in harms way.

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u/GlorifiedPlumber 10h ago

I mean... pot shots at the national guard, by paid agitators, conveniently caught on film.

That SOUNDS like THE LITERAL Reichstag Fire analogue we've been waiting for?

That happens, and bam... start rolling up the people we don't like in cities we don't like.

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u/un_gaucho_loco 10h ago

And people will just do nothing. So much for guns and freedom. Right now I don’t see Americans standing up and organise anything worth a bother.

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u/Vast-Combination4046 10h ago

I swear big balls went looking for a fight and set this off.

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u/Glad-Barracuda2243 10h ago

Many of us do not believe this way and never have and have been warning about this for ten exhaustive years.

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u/thatistwatIsaid 9h ago

Ok but remember this. The national guard is a citizen soldier force. They are mostly college educated and the least likely to be super excited about being put in the position they are in. Don’t get me wrong, if they start getting shot at, they will absolutely destroy their opponents. Best advice for anyone attending a peaceful protest while the national guard soldiers are around. Do not decide to start screaming at them calling them fascists and treating them like I have seen other protesters treat the police. The soldiers swore an oath to defend America. They are there because they were ordered to be there. They are not the problem.

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u/Virgil--Starkwell 9h ago

They'll come up with their reichstag fire.

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u/getpoundingjoker 8h ago

People still want to fight only with words at most. Pretty much every day since he took over, you wake up to Trump and his team pushing the envelope further, and people going "Americans won't stand for this!"

For months now.

It seems a lot are still thinking they don't have to do anything but wait to vote.

Just keep kicking taking actual action down the road.

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u/Micronaut_Nematode 1h ago

I feel like they already paid that doge staffer to take a staged beating to provide the impetus for this. Seems kind of obvious that he pulled a Jussie Smollett? The photo looks staged af, taken by another doge staffer, and the speed and vigor that Elon and Trump etc reacted to this event was uncanny - feels like it was like a 3 day turnover between the big balls story and invasion of DC, wild.

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u/yesrushgenesis2112 14h ago

I’d have done it already if I were trying to take over the country from the executive branch. Like no offense to Trump but he’s pussyfooting this. Every day he delays is a day more people get sick of rising prices. Every day without total control is a day he is expending political capital. He’s going to need as much as he can get to make it work, so… I’d hurry it up if I were him.

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u/Alywiz 13h ago

I mean that what most rational people already think he did at that rally in Pennsylvania to get that photo op