this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2024
892 points (97.1% liked)

News

23609 readers
4144 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

‘I think the bigger problem are the people from within, we have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics,’ Republican candidate tells Fox’s Maria Bartiromo

...

"And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military," he said.

"I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. Not even the people who have come in, who are destroying our country."

It isn't clear under what circumstances Trump would view it justifiable to call in US troops against his own countrymen.

But his comments mark a baseless attack and a particularly hollow one coming from someone whose supporters violently attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to stop him from being thrown out of office three years ago.


🗳️ Register to vote: https://vote.gov/

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Freefall 22 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Soldiers are not obligated to follow unlawful orders....the brass will say "no".

[–] A_Random_Idiot 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Just cause the big guy called Trump a fascist doesnt mean there arent plenty of supporters down the chain of command.

[–] Freefall 1 points 2 months ago

If the soldiers down the chain don't get the order because the big guy ignored the fascist, then their feelings don't matter.

[–] Clbull 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

How much support is there for Trump in the military though?

I'm worried about the possibility that this kind of rhetoric could lead to an attempted coup or civil war.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Really depends. In general officers tend to be mixed bag while enlisted soldiers tend to lean Trump.

But it also depends the branch. In my experience most Marines tend to support Trump while the Navy and Airforce is more mixed.

I’m sure you can get some statistics if you look it up. But it’s pretty certain the military leans more conservative than the general population on average.

[–] Maggoty 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

They lean conservative but not Trump. They voted blue in 2020 because the conservatives didn't really come out to vote for him. They also have very complicated feelings about the Constitution and targeting Americans. So they probably would refrain from getting involved in anything but the most egregious conduct, like the Jan 6th insurrection, until we're so far down the hole they can't maintain unit integrity between left and right. At that point you'd probably see about a 60/40 split.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Unfortunately people as a whole tend to follow orders regardless of their political party or legality. It's been studied and observed all throughout history

[–] Maggoty 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The officers already told Trump no. And when the National Guard was deployed for BLM protests they actually stuck to their ROE and didn't deploy force recklessly like the police. Even when the police tried to get the NG in trouble with the people by dressing like them and then telling the NG they might as well.

If the NG was ordered to show up at the polls they would most likely sit in a position a couple hundred meters away where most people won't see them but they'd be able to respond rapidly. They'd force the governor to be more and more explicit in their orders until they got to an actually illegal one. For example if the NG has been called for law and order they would be under the same restrictions as the police in regards to polling places. (In many states police aren't allowed to hang out there, they have to vote and leave unless someone specifically calls them and faking a call to get them there could count as election interference.)

I know it's hard to understand the military mindset from the outside looking in, but I guarantee you it's not the robotic machine that Hollywood portrays. They are very conscious of their responsibility to the people.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You don't think Trump will find people to do the job for him? Do you remember them black bagging and abducting people off the street in Portland during BLM? While the NG's performance was commendable during that turbulent time, I wouldn't rely on that fact staying true. Also I'm a vet and at least when I was in when we were given orders we weren't told why we were doing them or given any context for them so in the heat of the moment that's all you're going to have to go off of.

[–] Maggoty 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

This is at a level far above where we dwelled. It's the guys with stars on their shoulders shielding the troops. And you're correct, Trump did find willing lackeys, but he found them in Federal Law Enforcement. Most of them came from the Bureau of Prisons. He can't openly recruit among the military the way he can among federal agents. So I'm pretty sure what will really happen, if he's elected, is he'll stand up that group of agents again, equip them heavily and just call them soldiers.

Which is actually straight out of the dictator's handbook.

[–] CheeseNoodle 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Its not as simple as that though, e.g. that electro shock experiment was rather shaky and subsiquent attempts to replicate it have all but falsified its results.

What you have to do is cherry pick the small group of people that are willing to do awful things, you then get them to do those things in presence of the saner people who then feel guilty by association. After that you can use their lack of action to stop this awful thing as blackmail/guilttrip to get them to do some small awful thing of their own, and then repeat that process to get them to do increasingly awful things until everyone is just as bad as what was originally just a very small subset of that group. Importantly even though they're doing awful things they still feel bad about it but they're in too deep, this makes them even more effective than your original psychopaths because they know how they're likely to be punished should your side loose which makes them fanatical in order to avoid punishment.

Its a tried and tested process but not quite as simple as people just following orders.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

We have innocent men being lawfully executed by the state in the current year. How many people in total were involved in those processes without a single one standing up for justice? Our current "liberal" presidential administration hasn't uttered a single word in opposition to their murders

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

That’s because that’s what liberals are and that’s what they do. MLK knew this, and spoke on it, and yet for some reason people like to pretend they didn’t hear it.

[–] Raiderkev 2 points 2 months ago

Til they don't