Senior Democrats in US cities are preparing to defend their communities in the event of Donald Trump’s return to the White House after the former president has repeated threats that he would use presidential powers to seize control of major urban centers.
Trump has proposed deploying the military inside major cities largely run by Democrats to deal with protesters or to crush criminal gangs. He has threatened to dispatch large numbers of federal immigration agents to carry out mass deportations of undocumented people in so-called “sanctuary” cities.
He also aims to obliterate the progressive criminal justice policies of left-leaning prosecutors.
“In cities where there has been a complete breakdown of law and order … I will not hesitate to send in federal assets including the national guard until safety is restored,” Trump says in the campaign platform for his bid to become the 47th US president, Agenda47.
Trump provoked uproar earlier this week when he called for US armed forces to be deployed against his political rivals – “the enemy within” – on election day next month. But his plans to use national guard troops and military personnel as a means to attack those he sees as his opponents go much wider than that, spanning entire cities with Democratic leadership.
I feel like everyone forgot what happened last time.
People in unmarked vans with no identifying patches or badges, just fatigues, grabbing people off the streets at night in the northwest.
Even worse than the official fascists, the unofficial ones who were emboldened to act with impunity, riding into cities and inciting violence. Attempting to run Kamala’s bus off the road in 2020 in Texas.
Dems run like they want to lose. Always conceding the arguments of the fascists. Touting the endorsement of monsters like Dick Cheney. The kinds of monsters who made the Republican party what it is today.
If “senior democrats” actually gave a shit about avoiding conflict in the US, they’d actually be fighting for universal voting rights and eliminating FPTP voting.
Mega donors don’t want anti fascist rhetoric because it cuts into the profit margins
It’s almost as if fascism and unbridled capitalism have some kind of a mutually beneficial relationship.
Weird.
Oh, I fuckin remember.
Honestly, if Trump somehow pulls out a win - and definitely, if he pulls out a win with some very clearly bullshit tactics involving GOP congressional leaders and the Tribunal of Six - I am completely serious when I say I expect an order of magnitude increase of political violence, up to and including a potential civil war. It’s that bad.
A civil war is the only thing that can pull the US out of a Trump win, because fascists never give up power by choice and no one is coming to save us
the french might seriously consider coming to save us a second time, if only to rub our noses in it for the rest of history. They’d probably make us rename the US to something demeeaning too, like Cretinland,
I wouldn’t be able to handle it if that happened. I’d die embarrassed
You hit it on the head. The unmarked vans, unbadged troops, people “disappearing”–those were their practice drills and how they’ll do it. Uniformed troops will also be used in some situations (like the mass deportations), but the ones doing the daily dirty work against any demonstrators, specific political targets, etc. (“the enemy within”) will be those incognito forces. 😧
Allowing direct sales from car manufacturers and cracking down on unregulated supplements would knee cap fascism immediately
This feels like it attacks the problem at the margins. How is this approach more effective than direct dilution of power and flattening of hierarchies?
This approach would be a step along the way to that goal. A good chunk of fascist support comes from people selling supplements or used cars (there was a recent It Could Happen Here ep discussing this). Those people have money, power, and outsized influence on politics from local to federal. Disrupting their profits disrupts and dilutes their power. If your goal is to disrupt fascism there must be concrete steps to doing that, and this would be one.
We’re thiiiiis close to the death of the “free world.” Fascism is a blink away.
Seriously, and it’s his supporters that are the problem.
Trump is obviously a buffoon, but it’s his mass of ignorant bigots, thieves, and exploiters that give him his power.
Even if he loses, these people aren’t going anywhere. They are the real problem.
It’s so sad too. I just visited a concentration camp and memorial in Germany with plaques highlighting the evils of facism and thought to myself wow, there it is, in my home country (US). And I hope we don’t continue to get worse.
I wish we’d have that level of openness here in Romania. There’s plenty of Romanians who think of the Holocaust as a specifically German thing and are wilfully ignorant about our complicity.
Don’t worry, It Can’t Happen Here.
Always has been.
Do we have any idea of what military heads are thinking about that? Are they enthusiastic, mixed, or ready to oppose their commander in chief?
Active duty isn’t allowed to talk politics, but so far, some retired generals spoke out against Trump and endorsed Harris.
But on the flip side: go into any mess hall, on any base, and tell me what is on the tv for the news channel. I can guarantee that you won’t like the answer.
Fox News, unfortunately.
Some high ranked thoughts could be inadvertently leaked to the press, though.
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Man, you have way more confidence in the military not being full of MAGA idiots than I do.
As someone constantly surrounded by people in the military - they’re almost all MAGA idiots, and the ones who aren’t are fence sitting “libertarians” who go right wing every time.
Only one person matters and his name is Scott Q. Brown, Jr., Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff.
A person who can and will be replaced.
That’s actually how it will go for pretty much everyone down the chain of command. Obey Trump or be replaced by those who will, except the traitorous fucks are already drawing up lists of people they know will obey, and by extension, those they know will not.
Look into Schedule F of project 2025. It’s a plan to replace the entire government with loyalists. And that includes the commanders of the military.
That will take years though. And even once it’s done the majority of the military will be ill trained and ill equipped.
It won’t take them years. It will take 5 minutes and the stroke of a pen. Hell, Heritage foundation probably has the complete order already typed up for trump to sign.
The good news is, historically, loyalists make shit military leaders.
They aren’t going to have an officer corp left is the point. We’ve seen Authoritarian take overs of professional militaries in history. And I admit the Heritage Foundation may have some ideas on how to speed up the timeline. But the biggest sticking point has always been finding the bodies to man the “special” unit and disarming the military at large so it can’t respond to the special unit’s provocation.
What will most likely happen is they will stand up a paramilitary force in parallel with the military, and illegally use funds to arm them. This force will be incompetent for a couple years, causing pain and suffering but without the manpower or training to actually act as an oppressive force. It will also generate a lot of backlash because it’s operation is illegal and it’s likely we’ll see some of them actually get arrested. In fact I would say in the event that it meets armed resistance in this period, trump will bring in a national guard unit. However the national guard unit is going to amplify any crimes being committed by his special force. Not as in make the crimes worse, but as in let the world know they’re happening with credible reports. The national guard will then be sidelined while the trump administration attempts to make a special military unit to support his paramilitary unit. Someone with the training and competence to bail them out. What he’s going to find is the group of soldiers who know how cities run, Civil Affairs, actually leans left (for Americans) and has empathy. (They didn’t go into the job that has you giving people electricity and teddy bears because they were heartless.) So they aren’t going to be much help.
I’ll stop there because this will quickly snowball into a whole ass paper. But you can see the gist of why it takes years and what the cost of a hurry up is. It’s worth remembering the the SA was a militant wing of a political party that beat people up. The SS was mostly made of already existing police officers. It took merging the Wehrmacht training lines with the SA and years of selective pressure, (including propaganda about Russians in the middle of a war.) to get the Wehrmacht to commit war crimes on the Eastern Front, and look the other way while escorting SS death squads around eastern Europe. That’s the fastest we’ve ever see a modern military transform. The Red Army purges for loyalty to Stalin took 2 years and was just a loyalty purge in an army that was already supposed to be loyal to him. Removing the officers in the US military who believe the Constitution is above the president will likely take longer because there is not a culture of post civil war loyalty to party over country.
Too long? You can skip to here -
Their speed up plan likely creates significant barriers to their end goal and will actually make a total military conversion take longer. Historical methods will take several years but use less political capital and generate less backlash while it’s happening. America is 336 Million people. If we use common numbers, that’s 210 million adults (chosen because it’s close enough and easily divisible by 3), 70 million Democrats, 70 million apolitical, and 70 million Republicans. If you start actually oppressing people you can expect the non far right republicans to join the democrats in opposition. You now have ~105 million people in passive resistance. If you want to occupy a population that large (Not taking geography into account) you need 10.5 million soldiers. That’s how impossible this paramilitary project is. They literally cannot provide that many soldiers unless one in three of their hardcore supporters signs up.
While there are likely quite a number of people in the service who would put the constitution first, there’s also a disturbing number of Trump supporters, up and down the ranks,
The Air Force is particularly infested due to a somewhat sleazy church that Cadets at the Academy are sort of forced to go to.
https://religionnews.com/2012/07/12/debate-reignites-over-religion-at-air-force-academy/
That sort of shit has been going on long enough that you have officers in pretty high position who are Christian Dominionists, or these days called Cristian Nationalists. People who want to tear down the constitution and replace it with the Bible.
Still, he won’t have the full support. But he’ll have a lot. Especially with local police stations and such.
Which is where things like the Florida State Guard come in.
The Heritage Foundation is already building out lists of loyalists and where they’re going to work if Trump wins. So yeah, it won’t be instant, but it will be pretty fast.
Yeah that’s scary shit. My feeling is that to the extent there is a such thing as the deep state, it consists of these entrenched military and intelligence institutions, powers, and traditions, and when it comes to Trump vs. the Constitution, my money is on the deep state doing the right thing. They’re not just going to let themselves all be replaced leaving no adults in the room. As soon as it became obvious that that was the plan and it starting to happen, I predict, with my magic crystal ball, a military counter coup, which might take a variety of forms, perhaps even ones appearing to be natural causes. I don’t know, I try not to make predictions because they always come true and now I feel like I’m causing the things to happen. /s
What about military leadership, though?
And this is why I am dumbfounded that the majority of the left is anti-2a…the people who are gun owners unfortunately vote red, because they’re single issue voters or Republicans. All the dems would need to do to completely destroy the GOP would be drop the anti2a rhetoric and they’d sweep every election until the GOP died and another party came to compete.
I have never once heard an elected democratic politician (or serious candidate) speak against the 2nd amendment or even allude to repealing it. The only conversation I have personally seen/heard surrounding “gun control” is all about background checks/red flag laws which are supported by the majority of democratic and republican voters in every poll I’ve seen. All of the so-called “anti2a” rhetoric comes from the right in the form of fear mongering. That is to say (with no intention of being condescending), maybe stop listening to what right wing news outlets and politicians say Democrat’s are saying and just listen to what democrats are actually saying… You might be surprised at how sensible their ideas actually are on this issue.
I have never once heard an elected democratic politician (or serious candidate) speak against the 2nd amendment or even allude to repealing it.
You’re… you’re kidding right? The fuck are you talking about…
There’s literally an entire subreddit that documents every time a ban or confiscation comes up.
https://old.reddit.com/r/NOWTTYG/
You must be completely ignoring everything said on the Democrats side.
The only conversation I have personally seen/heard surrounding “gun control” is all about background checks/red flag laws which are supported by the majority of democratic and republican voters in every poll I’ve seen.
Uhh no…AWB, age limits, handgun bans, gun tax, mag limits, waiting periods, NFA… I could go on and on. You must not be from the USA if you think they only talk about BGC and ERPOs.
All of the so-called “anti2a” rhetoric comes from the right in the form of fear mongering. That is to say (with no intention of being condescending), maybe stop listening to what right wing news outlets and politicians say Democrat’s are saying and just listen to what democrats are actually saying… You might be surprised at how sensible their ideas actually are on this issue.
I love how you immediately think I’m listening to right wing garbage. You do know there are a large and growing amount of left leaning people who are gun owners now right? Trump admin helped increase that number tenfold. You might want to read more into what you think the dems are saying, because it’s not just ERPOs and BGCs…
It’s almost like having guns freely and widely accessible with few restrictions leads to a lot of death and injury, and the group with higher empathy has a problem with that.
Yes because other places without firearms, have no crime at all…
No gun crime, that can be said quite easily. Or at least the numbers of shootings are small enough that they make international news when they happen.
And also, the cops in those countries tend not to shoot people or pets. Like ever. Cases where an officer is forced to discharge their weapon are also international news stories.
But here in the states, we wouldn’t know any of that, because here there are two or three mass shootings per day.
Just let that dichotomy sink in a bit.
No gun crime, that can be said quite easily. Or at least the numbers of shootings are small enough that they make international news when they happen.
These countries also have safety nets and generally give a shit about their citizens. The usa doesn’t have any of that.
And also, the cops in those countries tend not to shoot people or pets. Like ever. Cases where an officer is forced to discharge their weapon are also international news stories.
We need to end qualified immunity here big time. Also something other countries(western) don’t have. 1 in 38ish deaths via firearms are from police. That’s including suicides which account for 66% of all gun deaths in the usa.
But here in the states, we wouldn’t know any of that, because here there are two or three mass shootings per day.
No there is not. This is the issue with data from the anti2a crowd, it’s like talking to the anti-abortion groups…made up and fully exaggerated shit.
https://www.cnn.com/us/mass-shootings-fast-facts/index.html
It was one per day for a while there, but the numbers have been up the last few years.
So yes, two or three per day.
As a note, a mass shooting is defined as a shooting where 4 or more people are injured or killed, not including the gunman.
idiot, other places without firears have far less, and taking away of guns always lowers the violence. You have no idea what you are talking about.
Yes far less firearm deaths. Not less crime or other deaths… it’s a reason London had a higher knife homicide rate than NYC at one point. It also helps that those other places have safety nets and support their citizens.
They aren’t anti 2a. They’re anti extremist interpretation.
If they had the ability to repeal the 2nd, they would. The end goal is alway complete removal. Let’s stop acting like its not.
They say with zero evidence.
I never understood why it’s something that Dems want to hide. There is a pretty damn large portion that want to repeal the 2nd.
https://time.com/5216782/john-paul-stevens-repeal-second-amendment/
https://newrepublic.com/article/166628/democrats-repeal-second-amendment-guns
https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-joint-resolution/81
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/repeal-second-amendment-gun-control/
https://www.amazon.com/Repeal-Second-Amendment-Safer-America/dp/1250244404
https://www.atf.gov/rules-and-regulations/national-firearms-act
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a19608552/major-owens-second-amendment-repeal/
https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2019/bills/SCR42_.pdf
Because the poll has somehow vanished…
In February, for instance, the Economist and YouGov asked Americans whether they supported a repeal of the Second Amendment. Just 21 percent said they favored such a proposal, compared to 60 percent in opposition.
The poll does, however, show surprisingly robust support for Second Amendment repeal (39 percent) among Democrats (by contrast just 8 percent of Republicans would support a full repeal).
So can we stop pretending that support to repeal and ban all guns isn’t something that is the end goal?
Lmao, throwing the kitchen sink at us and hoping we won’t check the details?
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Retired Supreme Court Judge
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Opinion article saying Democrats should, by a staff writer
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A House Bill from 20 years ago with no co-sponsors, that didn’t even make it out of committee.
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A Podcaster’s opinion article
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Opinion article saying Democrats should, by a staff writer
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College Professor wrote a book
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The law saying you can’t have fully automatic weapons, (LMFAO, really? you think that’s a repeal of the second?)
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An article about the the representative from number 3, who again, acted alone, admitted he acted without party support, and admitted it was little more than a political stunt. Thank you for giving us the first real evidence that Democrats are not trying to ban guns or repeal the second.
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Some state legislators asking for a clarifying amendment. Which, (checks notes), yup completely ignored by the party.
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A paywalled opinion piece by a staff writer.
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Your Seattle Times article puts those numbers in the correct light, because 39 percent isn’t a majority or anywhere near enough to force action on the national level.
But public-opinion polling shows it would take a lot of persuading to bring the public around to that view. In February, for instance, the Economist and YouGov asked Americans whether they supported a repeal of the Second Amendment. Just 21 percent said they favored such a proposal, compared to 60 percent in opposition.
So no. The answer is no. Because despite using eleven sources you could not find any evidence the democrats are actually trying to ban all guns. Even if we repealed the second amendment it wouldn’t ban all guns, it would just open the opportunity to regulate them.
I will however say that every time the GOP offers thoughts and prayers over the bodies of children, that number grows and once it reaches a tipping point a ban will be inevitable and there will be no glorious civil war because support will just be that high. If the GOP backed off for even a second and allowed red flag laws and universal background check, and had their state AGs prosecute those laws then there would be less shit for law abiding gun owners to wade through. Which is why 75 percent of Americans support Universal Background Check and Gun Licensing. The country is still willing to work with you, that may not be true in a another decade with a hundred more high profile mass casualty events at schools.
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Let’s stop following GOP propaganda by pretending that it is.
https://lemmy.world/comment/12950998
Let’s stop acting like the person you’re discussing firearms with is a gop supporter…yea?
None of my sources are gop driven links…so…have fun.
39% support among Democrats. Not all Democrats, not a plurality, and not even a majority.
Two of those fucking links went to the same stupid bill from 1994 that a handful of people put forward as an alternative to the assault weapons ban, and one of them is goddamn sticker on Amazon. You really are grasping at straws here.
I can understand the appeal for repealing the 2nd amendment, since a lot of people consider it too vague to have any real meaning, and the conservative loaded SC has determined that “well regulated militia” extends to groups of racist hilljacks in a pickup shooting unarmed black men.
That being said though… 39% of Dems oppose it, which means that the Democratic party as a whole is 61% in favor of keeping it.
So, are you gonna take the L and delete your comment, or are you gonna post another wall of bullshit that you didn’t even bother to read before calling it gospel and spreading it over the fediverse?
You do not execute orders that aren’t moral. The US Military is not like the Russians. Although, I wouldn’t depend completely on that.
Stanfrod prison experiment proved pretty amply that people will follow orders and adopt other peoples sadism as their own when directed to do so by an authority figure. Nurembourg was largely a propoganda show.
Tell the 200 or so military that were found guilty there.
It was originally supposed to have tried more like 15000, but yes, ultimately a low couple hundred were tried, and then the rest were just dropped. Theres interesting history there, and it functioned more like propoganda than justice.
Oh goodie, this that whole reason we have the 2nd amendment thing? Should work out great.
I guess he’s seen the episode of deep space nine and thought it would be a good idea…
So, ghettoes. And not the US ghettoes of the 60s and 70s, but the German ghettoes of the 30s and 40s.
Sounds like he’s promoting firing up civil war tbh. How much of that could he get away with before people aggressively fight back? Or at least I hope we’d aggressively fight back
Hey if the military takes over my town they’re going to be upset. As well they should be.
A military takeover of the cities would last about 20minutes, if that, it’s against the HOA rules.
What happens when the wealthy home owners see their property values drop, because the army is on every corner, they’ll start calling their political reps.
This is a childish fantasy, the highest real estate values are in cities, the wealthiest people have homes in cities. It is a fantasy of the Republic base, that tends not to live in large urban centers.
You know he means the downtown core, not the suburban white people who likely voted for him. But I gave you an upvote for the hilarity of an HOA council member telling the Proud Boys they aren’t allowed to setup there.
Oh, I’m sure they could deploy in a way that has acceptable optics for those folks. They would see a strong violent force there to enforce their interests over those pesky desperate poors.
I can imagine the various branches of the US military getting into slap fights over who gets to oppress whom.
US military personnel pledge an oath to protect the US Constitution from foreign and domestic enemies and that includes the Commander-in-Chief.
Too bad enemies isn’t explicitly defined huh.
This is why liberal gun owners exist
Hey guys, this person is gonna fight the military with his gun!
Correct, so maybe we could stop protesting Harris over Israel until AFTER the fucking election?
Just saying, we should probably stop the genocide coming for us before we try to stop the one not in our backyard? I mean it’s going to be harder to get Israel to stop bombing Palestinian children and give humanitarian aide to said children while we’re lined up for Trump’s gas chambers
signed, a transgender woman who don’t want to end up in a mass grave full of other AMAB individuals all of us wearing pink triangles!
signed, a transgender woman who don’t want to end up in a mass grave full of other AMAB individuals all of us wearing pink triangles!
Innocent gazans and Lebanese civilians dont want to end up in a mass grave either. If you wont stand up for civilization for them why should I or anyone else stand up for civiliation for you? If we are all being so calculated and tactical as you are, whats in it for me to save you? I’m not part of the trans community.
You dont even need to stand for justice-- just stand enough that we are neutral-- that we stop sending bombs,funding, and troops, and lending coverage in the UN. Do it for your own self respect and dignity, even.
Simple question: do you think voting in Trump again will make fighting for stopping the genocide in Gaza & Lebanon earlier or harder?
I think is she doesnt change her stand on it she has a good chance of losing.
Innocent Americans don’t want to suffer either.
Vote for orange arsewipe or his conservative enablers, Americans will suffer.
In the process of playing chicken with her to see who blinks first, yes, she might lose some votes. But she was going to lose some votes anyway because of the far right Israeli war, that she could win back that number and more if she alters her position to one that resonates with more Americans around the legends we tell ourselves about who we are. These are votes in key swing states that she could gain.
That loss of votes either way is on her and the cadre of scumbag consultants doing tactical spreadsheets based on issue support, weighing if they can keep that sweet sweet AIPAC money. You are just playing her and netenyahus game and you cant even see it that you have multiple peoples hands up your rear using you as a sock puppet. You allow that because you are utterly terrified, and that part is understandable.
