Yep. History was one of the subjects I enjoyed in school. And thankfully I went to mighty fine public schools where the teachers knew how to teach history.
Trump will presumably continue to attend UFC fights and wrestling matches.
Muy macho. But how long before we see him shirtless while riding a horse?
Why would we be riding a horse?
One night, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I’ll never know.
–Groucho
I loves me a good pedant. I’m weird that way.
My doubt regarding a military coup isn’t just because of “rational minds”; the US military is a vast sprawling quasi-corporate enterprise that is really difficult for a few people to actually control, and like any large corporation the key quality in climbing the ladder is conformance over creativity or independent thought. Unlike small militaries of ‘developing nations’ where becoming an officer is often a matter of buying rank or currying political favors, officers in the US (and other large professional militaries) spend a couple of decades making very careful footwork to avoid offending anyone or getting the wrong kind of attention in the hope of getting within spitting distance of flag rank, and then desperately hoping that someone above them retires out or keels over at their desk at just the right time for them to get short-listed. They’re also indoctrinated from OCS though their senior billets into protecting and defending the Constitution, and you’ll find most senior officers take that duty with the seriousness of religious belief even if they are career-minded to the point of obsession. It’s the kind of mindset that doesn’t really turn to coups because it is just too disorderly of a process without any rules or assurance of permanency. That is not to say that some might not support a civilian political ‘coup’ or takeover, especially if it can be justified as not violating the Constitution and somehow being ‘better’ for the country (which I’m sure is how someone like Mike Flynn sees it) but even then there is only so much of the military that a handful of conspirators can actually control.
If that was in reference to this post in which I said parenthetically “… (and the typical contempt that enlisted have for the lack of competence of high ranking officers is often not misplaced)…” it was specifically with respect to the statement that “…the average Trump-supporting enlisted man can probably be fairly easily convinced that the generals purposely messed up the Afghan withdrawal.” Not hatred, but a general feeling that high ranking officers (i.e. those well above the lieutenants and captains they regularly see and maybe interact with) don’t value the ground pounder or sailor who is directly in harms way, and often make decisions that are beneficial to their own career over achieving objectives worth the risk posed to their men and women.
So, while I don’t doubt that Trump fully intends to intern immigrants in concentration camps if he can’t immediately deport them (to where?), I don’t think he or anyone else advocating for this has any notion of what the scope of this would look like. Elsewhere, I noted with respect to the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII that:
Even if Trump could manage to round up millions of undocumented immigrants (using what labor force? how will they be processed and transported? where does the budget and administration of this effort come from?) finding space and erecting even temporary facilities to contain people, even with some subminimal standard of hygiene and care, would be essentially impossible. It took the Nazis years to establish a system where they could transport and intern (and murder, and bury or cremate) the approximately 17 million Jews, Roma, homosexuals, Communists, et cetera, and Trump is promising to do this in his first few weeks or even months? It’s complete nonsense; that that this would prevent him from trying, but like every ‘constructive’ thing he actually tries to do he’ll make a complete hash of it because he has no clue how things actually get done and won’t tolerate lessons from subordinates about how to actually get what he wants.
Stranger
That’s a great post, Stranger_On_A_Train. I’m just going to hightlight a little of it below.
In my experience, officers were always concerned about the risks posed to their subordinates. Even the few bad/less competent officers I encountered were.
Of course they don’t have any idea. Trump and his cohort have talked themselves into doing something stupid. Yeah, I’m shocked too. And they have to start working on it or their entire hosue of cards comes falling down.
He’ll have a captive labor force right there.
Even after four years in office, he still believes in the pharonic presidency. This is what happens when you put a 100% spoiled brat in charge of one branch of government. And he wants to run all three, doesn’t he?
Hey, let’s waste more money on the newest military branch!
I personally think the Space Force has no business whatsoever being a full-fledged separate military branch. But we’re stuck with it now. And guess what? From the Military.com link above, there’s this bit of news:
President-elect Donald Trump is likely to overturn a decision to permanently place U.S. Space Command in Colorado and move it to Alabama – where Trump originally wanted it – during his first week in office, the House Armed Services Committee chairman said Monday.
On July 31, 2023, President Joe Biden’s administration announced that Space Command would keep its headquarters at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado – reversing Trump’s announcement in 2021, which would have moved it to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., told a Mobile, Alabama, radio station on Monday that Trump had vowed to reverse the decision on the campaign trail and said the president-elect will make good on that promise in short order.
Yeah, let’s spend all that money moving a major command to a different part of the country. That’s how to save tax dollars!
And in other military news (also from Military.com),
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, was involved in an incident of alleged sexual assault in 2017 at a hotel in Monterey, California, according to local authorities.
The alleged incident occurred in the early hours of Oct. 8, 2017, and involved a victim who suffered bruising on their thigh, police records released by the City of Monterey show. Authorities did not disclose the age or identity of the alleged victim.
Tim Parlatore, Hegseth’s personal lawyer since 2017, told Military.com on Friday that “as confirmed by the Monterey Police Department, there was an allegation that was fully investigated, and he was cleared of any wrongdoing.”
This part at the end of the article is quite interesting (in a WTF? way), also:
Hegseth ended his Guard career after being among at least a dozen Guardsmen removed from the Capitol defense mission in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack.
He has claimed he was labeled a security risk due to his Jerusalem cross tattoo. However, Hegseth also sports a “Deus Vult” cross tattoo, a symbol tied to the First Crusade. The phrase and cross have since been co-opted by neo-Nazi and far-right groups, raising further scrutiny of his background.
Squeaky clean this cabal of Trump’s ain’t.
He wants to use the military to do it. They can just round up every brown person they see at gunpoint into trucks, traincars and the like without bothering with things like food and water, then dump them into the middle of a desert somewhere. Just have them sit in the open, no need for shelter. The fact that the lack of logistics will kill many of them is a feature, not a problem.
In the long run though I expect the sheer difficulty of moving millions of people will convince them the effort is futile and they’ll simply cut out the middleman and issue orders to kill anyone brown skinned on sight and leave the bodies where they fall. Less Nazi Germany and more Rwanda, just with guns instead of machetes.
Don’t forget Plan Day #1 (aka “Shock and Awe”) is to separate children from their parents.
Last week, while appearing on Donald Trump Jr.'s podcast, the president-elect’s son asked incoming “border czar” Tom Homan what border and immigration-related action the public can expect to see on Day 1 of the new Trump administration.
“Shock and awe,” Homan responded. “Shock and awe,” he repeated with a smile.
&
However, he has publicly expressed support for it, telling CBS News in the run-up to the election that child separation “needs to be considered, absolutely.”
&
The next month, when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions held a press conference in San Diego to publicly declare that parents who unlawfully brought their children across the border would be prosecuted and separated from their children, Homan told reporters that his department “stands shoulder to shoulder” with Sessions.
Mind you, I have no doubt some of Trump’s rabble likely have wet dreams along those lines, but I seriously doubt such orders would be followed.
The military would overthrow Trump before any of that happens.
Not even a small chance of that happening.
Here’s what I believe would happen if Trump and his so-called administration issues such orders: either he gets impeached immediately and Vance becomes pesident or the cabinet meets and removes him from office and Vance becomes president.
I know. There’s no scenario where Trump orders the military (which is 38% black and/or Hispanic) to “round up everyone who looks brown and leave them in the desert to die” and it happens.
Please do NOT pretend to agree with me. It is obvious I meant that your scenario was crap.
And the one I was responding to is completely sensible?
Your scenario is crap. That is what I said, that is what I meant, and anything else you putting words in someone else’s mouth.
So you’re not saying that Der_Trihs’ scenario is crap, then.
Fuck off.
That isn’t a yes or a no.
I think people greatly overestimate the amount of scruples the US military has. And having its command staff replaced with Trump flunkies is certainly not going to improve matters.