There are many reasons I think dictatorship will fail here. One big one is that this is a huge country with so many cities.
How many big cities can the National Guard occupy before they start to stretch apart and defect?
My guess is 5, max.
We shall see, but I bet they’re already in too deep.
I’m not banking on this but I agree that some nationally centralized dictatorship is unlikely to succeed. I do, however, think states and localities have immense power to make people’s day to day lives miserable and think we’re gonna see a lot of variable responses on that front.
You’re not considering Trump’s new personal army, ICE? He is building his own private force of disaffected bros who think he will fix their sad little lives by cosplaying as soldiers. In fact it’s an American paramilitary being built right before our eyes. No-one is doing a thing about it!
Making fun of them, showing the absurdity, keeping them useless, and rendering them stupidly incompetent takes engagement and cunning - need to protest.
Dictators have never had such access to control so many lives as tech affords Trump though.
I pray you are right but...
The G Floyd protests played out by how long & moved to front of WH will be gage in knowing the outcome Plus remember the craziness of the Bible thumper thumbing his Bible up In Air & utilizing his staff as mobile pawns for looks mood?
Not sure if the NG has the capability/will to occupy one large city, let alone 5
The National Guard are supposed to be controlled by the governors. How can Hegseth and his inept Pentagon call out the Guard from 19 states?
We will win because of what we’re known for: loud, obnoxious, hate to be told what to do…and damn, authoritarians can’t handle 500 million guns in the hands of the riff raff (us, for those following along…and YES…us liberals own guns too. Have a nice day)
That’s an accurate assertion. The US mil isn’t big enough to occupy the US against insurgency, especially if a sizable chunk refuses the orders & keeps its gear.
(Who runs AFG after 20 yrs of occupation by a multi-national Coalition?)
Which is why ICE has that massive budget in the Big Ugly Bill.
I think as soon as people’s MeeMaws have to move in with them because they no longer have Social Security, medicaid, medicare, meals on wheels and SNAP, it will turn them away from MAGA
So we'll get our own "fall of rome" moment but just inside our country
I’d wouldn’t be surprised if Trump decided not to pay the National Guard. He’s notorious for not paying what he owes.
I wonder if there was someone with the last name "Nichtern" living in Germany in the 1930s who said something similar. (Especially given that the name has German and Jewish origins.)
Large active duty military is next in line. Already used in LA.
We all know reds states will not deploy the guard for their own natural disasters
But they have endless money for untrained shooters they are hiring.
I was going to go with there are 3 guns in America for each person. It's only going to take a few shots fired to make these people rethink their employment. Also, The taunts they must endure would be maddening to me.
Nazi Germany didn't have to station troops in every big city. Neither will Trump. He doesn't need to now. The country has already fallen to fascism and there's no real pushback. He didn't send troops into DC because they were rioting about his policies, because no one's rioting about his policies.
Yeah, they don’t want a large scale door-to-door operation with very armed Americans.
Sure USmil would win at the cost of destroying their own neighborhoods, but they’d be ground down VC style.
Plus, many folks will get….. creative.
This is a very good point, thank you!
And, you are assuming 100% buy-in by N G troops. There won't be. Even our most true-blue troops will eventually see this as the political theater it is. When Americans start questioning the choice to serve, the trust in our military that was rebuilt after Vietnam will be gone.
But it’s winning right now.
I hope so.
I hope you are right.
That's why he's pumping such a Godawful amount of money into ICE.
I don’t think this dictatorship will last for too long, but damn we are going to need decades to clean up all the shit Trump destroyed in 7 months. When this is over we need lots of new laws to make sure this can never happen again.
Plan B is to make America bleed.
Russia and China are huge countries, and yet. I know they have very different cultures and histories, but the speed at which major institutions in the US, public and private, have capitulated, as well as the lack of meaningful mass resistance by the people does not bode well.
Russia. It works there. The dictatorship. And it’s 1.8 times the size.
Way before we get to armed occupation of cities shit will start failing wholesale. There are too many little bits that need constant maintenance to keep the big systems running. If workers cease to give a shit...all fall down.
I hope you are right!
I'll take the under. They failed to subdue LA, they're doing fuck all in DC, there are parts of Oakland and Houston I would encourage them to avoid for their own sake. I'm going to start the bidding at zero, Ethan.
They will focus on the cities in Democratic states blue states. The red states are too stupid to do anything about it. That’s where the KKK/ICE recruits are coming from.
I think we'll see an increasing exodus from red to blue states. Us blue state folk need to develop refugee programs & systems.
We need to encourage a fracturing within the military. I believe [hope?] that a lot of active duty and reserves realize the problem and won't comply once it turns violent.
As a Gen X and someone that grew up in a heavily "redneck" populated area I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that all the people that you couldn't control are the same ones now embracing the authoritarianism of a dictatorship.
How long until people start describing the movie civil war as prescient. A populist central state at war with an east and west coast.
I agree. 1700 guard stretched over 19 states — one guard in every park hahahahaha
Looking at LA- the national guard failed miserably here. LA is huge and spread out and the communities are VERY strong and resilient. Trumps ‘army’ got kicked out basically.
I think the biggest difference between America and every country that has fallen to dictatorship is kings.
In every country that has become a dictatorship in modern history, the adult population grew up in a monarchy. Having a dictator was almost a return to normalcy.
If it can succeed in Russia and China it can succeed here.
wait till they try dallas it's like 50 miles wide
I hope you are correct!!
I don’t think people joining the National Guard thought this is what they’d be doing. I would imagine attitudes are already bad.
That being said, we don’t have a coherent opposition party right now, and I think the odds of us returning to anything resembling pre-2016 American are literally zero.
Uncharted waters all the way. Take care of each other. Community is everything.
It’s the start of hurricane season as well. Southeastern states may need their guards. 🤷♀️
If the Governors of all Blue states activate their full guard now, even five is too many. Kick them in the balls before they arrive
I am so worried that dictatorship will win big time because so many people feel that democrats are not perfect enough for them! They’d rather vote for a perfect dictator than not quite perfect party!😢
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Listening to George Conway, though -- he points out that DC is the important city. If he gets voted out or impeached out, who's gonna make him leave?
Or Drop our Gaurd😎
So many cities, so many people, and so many guns.
Eventually the people will stop complying and shoot the idiots.
They also destroyed the admin state as a first attack...but they'd need it fully functioning to consolidate. I firmly believe this will fail, theyre too incompetent, but it will be violent, they will not give up power.
Well it’s been a while since I left the army, but I spent most of my time in the OPFOR at NTC in California and my experience is that the NG is generally pretty crappy. Yeah they’ve got some basic training and gear and whatnot but they barely know how to use their gear and don’t work on the reg.
I was thinking the same thing, just like DOJ’s resources are being stretched thin by all their bogus “investigations.” Of course, that could just lead to them NG & LE recruiting w/ever decreasing standards, & firing on people out of desperation.
It could succeed with the "frog in the pot" method. You won't have the National Guard and the military shoot a significant number of people today.
The troops will be rather ICE as an SA. The problem with this is that it would take a long time to train, and also that these are rejects.
And this is assuming all guard members actively participate. I think if shit really starts to hit the fan, there will be fewer military members showing up
As things stand now, yes, but they are building a nationalized "police" force via ICE and will be receiving billions to accomplish this. The current National Guard, as we know it, will be backstopped by the ICE goons that will be brought onto our streets.
