Hidden by What Exit?
Really? Then why do I keep hearing about military families on food stamps and other (non-military) government support?
Moderating:
This is very off-topic, no replies in this thread please.
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This is a plan to push the country’s politics to the left. But before we were talking about a federalized NG staging a coup by preventing Democratic members of Congress from entering the Capitol. And an “#Occupy movement except with real leadership and teeth” is not going to appeal to the NG.
I’m not saying that appealing to the political views of the federalized forces in DC is a good idea. But then, I do not see a successful coup next year (or in January 2026) as high-risk. But if I did see a successful coup, in 17 months, as high risk, I’d be willing to temporarily trade away progressive policies I favor. I think almost everyone would.
Have you ever read about the 1861 secession crisis? When the risk of Washington DC being surrounded by confederate border state arnies became high, all the members of Congress who previously were vehemently anti-slavery suddenly switched to favoring pro-slavery laws. Weeks later, when Maryland was secured and D.C. filled with pro-Union troops from Massachusetts and New York, the panic subsided, and DC opinion swung way in the opposite direction.
If there really was a deeply felt conviction that a coup was imminent, an Occupy movement would be the last thing anyone would – or should – want.
Well, a State of Emergency exists now (it really is a shame that DC isn’t safe enough for a teenager to take his date out to try and find some drugs at 2 AM on a Sunday morning). If such an emergency existed when this so-called attack happened on Jan 6, he surely would have done what was necessary. /s
Washington D.C. is currently less than half Black. It was only a majority-Black city from the 1950s to the 2000s. It has the highest gross domestic product per capita by a long shot among all the states.
Please note that I said it was “seen as a black city,” not that it was a black city and for Trump voters it is far too black of a city, with a black mayor (like every other city mentioned in Trump’s list of places to crackdown).
Msn explains the Home Rule Act and the current situation. I learned a lot about historical context of the Home Rule Act and Washington D.C. calls for self rule.
Well if that’s the case at 2 am no major city is safe ! In Nj the state police regularly have crime suppression units at 11 pm in Trenton there state capital….Thats because at 2am it wouldn’t be safe for the police to be out ! In a capitalist economy there are haves and have nots and when the deck is somewhat stacked “ Rigged “ like are country at birth you there are much more have nots ! Since the 1970’s the folks that are at the tail end of our economy reside in most of our major’s cities where drugs and alcohol is rampant. In this dynamic survival comes down to “ By hook or crook mentality “ . A great government would work on fixing the problem not moving it out of sight….Trump and his hand picked wolves are not a great government….Handing out bibles and a trip on a bus solves nothing!
I have no idea what their Rules of Engagement are. That won’t be readily available to anyone. I’ve been on security missions on active duty and in the National Guard. Most of the time we did not have ammunition. During Noble Eagle missions after 9-11 we carried loaded weapons. Most likely the troops will be used for logistical support and crowd control if needed rather than anything police related.
I was never trained with or saw tear gas in the National Guard and I did a lot of crowd control training over the years.
Due to where they are the DC Guard may have different training than other Guard units. I do believe they have a Military Police unit in the DC Guard.
The DC National Guard is not some independent body that looks out upon the landscape and decides what orders it will collectively follow or whose politics it will back. It is an arm of the military and when federalized directly under control of the president, its members subject to disciplinary action for refusing orders (legal or no, you disobey a direct order from a superior NCO or officer and you will experience consequences), and unless there is a cohesive group of resistors within senior leadership there isn’t going to be any intransigence to following any orders short of mass killing of legislators.
The only way out of this mess is political, if not shoving politics leftward at least away from the increasingly dominant far-right to the point that Congress is compelled to avt and take back its authority. Frankly, I don’t see this happening because the only cohesive movement is on the right, and as buffoonish as people like Hegseth, Mike Johnson, and Stephen Miller are, they’re also devoted to their cause, such as it is.
I’m not following your logic because the example of the Secession Crisis is that legislators under duress of public opinion switched away from their supposedly deeply held views out of expedience. A mass public repudiation of all things MAGA may have a similar effect (not that I think it is likely, or anything structured like the actual #Occupy movement would have a prayer of engendering a broad shift in public opinion) but if it occurred after a complete political takeover—a ‘hard coup’ versus the slowly grinding ‘soft coup’ we are currently experiencing—it would be too late.
I don’t hold out much optimism that things will suddenly revert to pre-MAGA normality one day even if Trump keeled over a bucket of fried chicken, and federalizing law enforcement in DC under an obviously false pretense even if it isn’t an intentional plan to interfere with Congress doesn’t do anything to assuage my concerns. But I guess we’ll see what comes.
Stranger
Can you imagine a couple of Cops struggling with all the difficult elements of their profession, being given two outsiders to ‘enhance’ their job performance. Which, at best, means ‘give us some low hanging fruit we can take credit for’.
I mean, it’ll be readily available to all of the National Guard troops. That’s a lot of people. Are rules of engagement typically classified? Even if so, that’s enough people in on the secret that leaks are likely.
The Geneva Conventions actually prohibit the use of tear gas in warfare so I wouldn’t expect the US military to be trained in its use.
As the Geneva Conventions do not cover what a government does to its own citizens in peacetime it is a common thing for suppressing civil unrest, riots, etc. in many nations. Actually, there may be a specific carve-out for domestic use in one of the more recent treaties dealing with such matters.
My closest experience would be when we were attached to the Port Authority Police after 9-11. We got posted at various locations by the bridges and tunnels. Just your basic guard duty operations at infrastructure points of interest. We could react to attacks but were not given any police powers.
It would probably be classified as FOUO not Secret.
Good example of augmentation. You filled a need. Trumps troops are supposed to enhance existing MPD performance. MPD aren’t doing their jobs so Trump will give them a little help. There is no goal and probably no clear rules of engagement.
The currently applied term is Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). Generally speaking, ‘standing orders’ like military rules of engagement (RoE) are not classified or even ‘close hold’ because even most members of the military do not hold any kind of security clearance and it is important for soldiers/sailors/airmen/Marines to know what their rules are for dealing with conflict or apparent threats. Unclear RoE and/or a lack of clear communication from staff to field officer to NCO results in bad things happening as people in command don’t understand the situation on the ground and people on the ground don’t understand the objectives of leadership.
Stranger
Well you have a president with no grasp of what the National Guard really does or its capabilities. It’s a stream of consciousness deployment.
Strictly going by Wikipedia it looks like the DC Guard contains the 372nd Military Police Battalion. They would be best suited to assist with law enforcement. Knowing how these things go that unit is probably largely made up of police officers from DC Metro or law enforcement from other local agencies. So they will be activated and taken away from the agencies they will be activated to “help.”
I would point out that the things discussed in this thread involve Trump following the rules–often bending them considerably (all of the “states of emergency”), perhaps breaking them sometimes (Posse Comitatus wrt NG in LA), but not yet violating them without plausible deniability or simply dispensing with them.
In line with the mindset to which the above point, Trump was apparently worried recently that any law enacted to prevent Congress from trading in stocks would force him to sell Mar-a-Lago, etc. In my view, a burgeoning dictator would not have reacted thus. Similarly, why try to gerrymander Texas (legal but unethical) if he is planning simply to end free elections in 2026?
Over the course of his life, Trump has been very good at abusing and hacking the legal system. Sure, he’s broken the law an infinite number of times, but, as far as I can see, the vast majority of such cases involved Trump not understanding that a “hack” would itself be a crime (e.g., his 34 felony convictions). There are other cases in which he simply broke the law without an excuse, such as with his abuse of women, but I think those cases fall into a different category mentally for the man.
None of the above should be construed as any kind of defense of Trump. He’s 100% scum. But in order for Trump to suddenly to take all of these autocratic bits and bobs and really go for the Putsch, he’s going to have to make a qualitative shift from hacking democracy to ending it. Is it possible that he will try? Sure. Do I think that Trump has a complete plan to do so and understands the potential risks and benefits of each move within it? Absolutely not. Do I think that others might have such a plan and understanding? Likely. Do I think that the people are in place (including Trump) and ready to implement such a thing? Again, absolutely not.
The situation indeed sucks. American government is predicated on the president and other high-level officials playing by the rules and not trying to destroy our system from within. Trump has shown that this trust isn’t enough to prevent, well, him.
But this DC feint will have no power to stage an auto-coup, since all of those involved would not know what to do to support it if Trump were to make that move, and the result would be chaos with a minimal amount of success. So it goes with all of the bad and dumb shit that Trump is pulling.
IMHO it is because the Republican leadership told the R congress critters to stop doing the usual town halls to get feedback.
It has been terrible for the few that dared to still do them, of course the “Liberal Media” (was there ever a more disingenuous line coming from the Republicans?) has not been reporting much on that unrest, but we all should continue to spread the work.
Because right now the regime is in the midst of a pretty effective ‘soft coup’. They have no assurance that a ‘hard coup’ wouldn’t turn into a complete scrum (as they often do unless the aspirant demagogue has assurance of military support) but they are sure covering all bases in terms of both the quasi-legal and the ‘just in case’ 2026 elections go completely slideways on them. It is certainly possible that all of this is just because of how much Trump hates looking at homeless people and also likes to take every opportunity to outrage Democrats and the ‘liberal [sic] media’, but it also sets a precedent that will be easier to justify next time, and maybe even instigates the ‘Reichstag Fire’-type incident that people like Stephen Miller, Vince Haley, and James Braid (among others) are clearly lusting for.
Yeah, the GOP leadership has really tried to circle the wagons and keep Republicans in Congress insulated against their constituents, even in favorable districts. Joni Ernst in particular managed to repeatedly trip over her own dick (metaphorically, of course). Enough of that and all but the hardcore MAGAs are going to wonder about their long term prospects, insofar as anything is ‘long-term’ at this point.
Stranger