Already looking ahead to the turmoil his re-election could cause, Donald Trump and his allies are reportedly circling an idea to invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, deploying the military to act as domestic law enforcement.
According to a Washington Post report on Sunday, the drafting of such plans has largely been “unofficially outsourced” thus far to a coalition of right-wing think tanks working under the title “Project 2025.” It was identified as an immediate priority for the hypothetical resurrected Trump administration, internal communications obtained by the newspaper showed.
In response to questions from the Post, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung provided a statement: “President Trump is focused on crushing his opponents in the primary election and then going on to beat Crooked Joe Biden,” he said. “President Trump has always stood for law and order, and protecting the Constitution.”
One failed coup, on trial for insurrection and planning the next one.
Welcome to this episode of “Dumb Criminals”.Technically if he wins the election it wouldn’t be insurrection, but anyone trying to stop him would be.
The President swears an oath to defend the Constitution, which includes the Bill of Rights.
Implementing Project 2025 would still be an insurrection.
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He won’t win.
As an outsider looking in I’m not so confident
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Unfortunately the game isn’t to win the popular vote, it’s to win the electoral vote. You can rack up all the votes in California and New York, it’s only like 6 states that really matter to the outcome. And the Democrats aren’t exactly trying their best to endear themselves to voters in a state like Michigan (not even paying lip service to doing anything to protect civilians in Gaza, not prosecuting the people responsible for the Flint Water Crisis and even accepting their endorsement, constantly claiming the economy is great while people are still struggling, …).
Those people might not vote Trump, but they’ll stay home or vote third party.
Which in itself is a vote for Trump. I wish we were a society where voting for your personal choice for most ideal candidate was a viable option - but it is not. Protesting a vote over this fact is small-minded and destructive. I am sorry if you feel like you have to pick between two evils… might I suggest comparing how evil they are.
Don’t tell me, I’m not the one voting/not voting in swing states. I’m just saying that Biden needs the Muslim vote in swing states, and they’re seeing democrats sending billions to Israel to effectively conduct a genocide. I don’t think they see that as a ‘lesser of two evils’, especially if there’s some Republicans making noises about stopping aid on budgetary grounds.
Trump lost Michigan in 2020 and then in 2022 Gretchen Whitmer (D) won a second term as Governor. Also in 2022, both the Michigan State Legislature and Michigan State Senate flipped to Democratic majorities for the first time in over a decade. I don’t know how things will go in 2024, but I don’t think flying the Trump banner will find any significant wins in Michigan.
I agree that more needs to be done regarding the civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, but our hands are a pretty tied because of our obligations in the US treaty with Israel. Keeping those promises makes helping the Palestinian people very difficult, but breaking that treaty would likely destabilize the balance of power there and make things worse not better for everyone in the region. US Secretary of State Blinken has already strongly urged Israel to avoid civilian casualties. If Governor Whitmer said anything on the matter it would probably be seen as speaking out of turn.
it’s only like 6 states that really matter to the outcome.
Not technically true. There are only like 6 states that are big enough to have a large impact and not predictable enough to not already know who they’ll vote for.
CA is nearly 20% of the needed electoral votes by itself, it’s just that absolutely everyone knows those are going to go to the Democrats so no one really fights over them. It’s a waste of resources for Dems to defend them or GOP to try to convert them because they aren’t going to budge.
If CA or NY went red, or even came meaningfully close to going red, they would be the most important state in the election.
Imagine if the democratic states kick him off the ballot. He could get zero votes from 1/3 of the states in the country and still win.
Did you know you can with the presidency with something like 30% of the vote? Just win states by one vote each in reverse order of population until you get to 270 electoral votes.
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I actually don’t like this possibility. If something transpires where ALL states disqualify him from the ballot, fine. But if only blue states do, that’s just going to feed a resurgence of “the election was stolen from him” and I don’t see that going well either.
It’s better than a Trump win in the short term, but for the next 50 years we’ll have to hear about how the blue states “stole” an election from Republicans, and they’ll use it to justify bullshit of one sort or another.
for the next 50 years we’ll have to hear about how the blue states “stole” an election from Republicans
STOP trying to get ahead of their whining idiocy. They will be saying this no matter what. Even if he wins…
If he is convicted in Georgia, I think it is unlikely that he will be on the ballot there.
Great. Should anyone bring that up, there’s the little matter of the election that was stolen from Gore.
And recent polls have him gaining literally 10 points on basically every demographic versus 2020. How? I have no fucking idea. But he’s up in swing states because black men and Latinos and white people under 35 have apparently decided that Trump is fine all of a sudden.
Also some young folks: My vote doesn’t matter, so why vote?
Hnnngggghhhh I’m trying not to strangle them collectively.
Biden isn’t doing so well that is how. You can deflect blame all you want but when nearly everyone is poorer than they were in 2020, when Eastern Europe and the middle east is on fire, when abortion is now illegal in most of the country, when student loan debt and living expenses promise a disaster, when pretty much everything that was broken 3 years ago is still broken the polls will reflect that.
If he could fix one major problem.
I’ve heard that one before. Didn’t turn out well.
I’m a Brit. In 2016, my best friend (who’s not a betting man) walked into a betting shop and placed a £50 accumulator on Clinton winning the US election and the UK voting to Remain in the EU.
Dead certs, right?
I always bet for bad news that way I still get something.
I pray to the gods you’re true
I said that the first time around. I’m hoping it remains true though.
I’m so sick of these treasonous jackals.
Better article on the topic IMO: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/conservatives-aim-to-restructure-u-s-government-and-replace-it-with-trumps-vision
Basically a conservative power fantasy
Fascist power fantasy. No need to sugarcoat it.
conservative
fascist
theyre_the_same_picture.jpg
a conservative power fantasy
Yeah, but if people think this is harmless and don’t go vote, this might become true anyway
Man, I was hoping that since we’re obviously gonna end up with a dystopia, that it would be a cyberpunk one, but here we are, gonna be stuck with a regular boring ass dictatorship.
At least people will understand why we are revolting. Convincing the world of your cause is usually the hard part.
Is america really this retarded?
Trump lost the popular vote last time but still got enough state victories to win with Electoral College votes, and he is less popular now than then, but his base is very vocal and with so many adults disassociating themselves with the Republican Party it makes it a very bottom of the barrel pool for candidates.
The problem is there is only one other national party with any chance of winning, and their candidate just gave more weapons to the nation currently bombing children’s hospitals and refugee camps.
So while the average US Citizen might be better than this, our ancestors built a system and our elders corrupted it to the point where a large enough coalition of below average people can destroy the nation. Yes, we’re really that stupid.
It’s racism plain and simple…
Remember when Joe the Plumber claimed that deep down “Everyone wants a white Republican president again!”
He specified White.
Same reason why I knew that Ben Carson’s lead was going to vanish as soon as the debates began. Not because he isn’t a good debater. I mean he’s got the pseudoscience crowd on lock along with the pseudo intellectual. But it was very obvious that when the Republican base saw what color doctor Ben Carson is yeah that’s going to be the end of it.
The problem is media capture and people not realizing how they are being bamboozled, not anything else.
Oh no, it absolutely is bigotry. Bigotry is the root of how those people think and it’s the mindset the fascists are exploiting.
My sister in law: Ahem, fake news. Checkmate librul.
Also my extremely gay ex-online friend who used to be a Democrat until he hit himself on the head with 4chan:
Your average American voter is apparently a goldfish.
Contrary to popular belief, goldfish don’t have bad memory.
I’d prefer goldfish to American voters. Goldfish have their priorities straight. They’ll remember who drops the pellets and who said they’d drop pellets but never did.
I’m taking your goldfish that understands human language.
They also don’t prefer small tanks.
You’re literally killing them with their own piss by using such small fish tanks.
Its even retarder than that
About 40% is yes…which is enough to cause serious issues.
There’s a good documentary on this - Idiocracy.
Yet those people were smarter than his supporters. they saw someone smart and decided to put him in power.
Not a good example because Camacho literally acknowledged that there was a problem and then put the smartest man in the world towards fixing it.
Oh god. It’s worse than Idiocracy.
Reality is Stranger Than fiction, not because we live in a world of Wonder and miracle or there’s some kind of magic in the world that makes things happen. But simply because people who write fiction typically want it to make sense.
Yes. Kill me, please.
Correct
Evidently yes. I can’t even wrap my head around it. I will die before ever fully understanding how any grown and evidently sane adult could ever look at Donald Trump and say to themselves, “yeah, that’s the guy I want for my president!” I just can’t fathom it. I’ve had years to think about it but it still simply does not compute.
Not all Americans, but a surprising amount of them. And the “liberal media” with their both-sidering horse race nonsense is not even pretending to try to make the situation any better.
No, but please keep telling me how a three year age difference is more important than US democracy…
I think I’m missing some context.
That poster is complaining about the people who view Biden as too old, while Trump is only three years younger.
Biden IS too old.
And also Trump is too old. And a crazy person. Lol
Thanks
It’s going to be interesting (assuming our system survives the onslaught of conservatives) how the “liberal media” deals with things like age reversal, should they come to pass. What will constitute being “too old” in such a context?
That’s what I hate so much about our “liberal media” system. They keep both sidering stuff like Biden’s age vs. donnie’s overt appeal to fascism.
I like to think I can read pretty good, but I couldn’t figure out how the post summary is related to the article.
Dailybeast does a “doomscroll” load next article thing. That paragraph is from that. Its on the same page, so the bot likely just fucked up. Here’s the article name if y’all want context:
Inside the Mean-Girl Army Going to War for a Celebrity Dietician
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And the guy called Cheung is behind that quote? Wake up sweety, you’d go into conc camps, just like asian-looking americans did while the ww2 was going on.
How to have large swathes of the military join the protestors, step 1.
People IMO VASTLY overestimate the popularity of the Republicans among the troops. It probably breaks about the same way as the general populace, and as far as being willing to follow orders to march against protestors, the troops that would do it are probably more worried about their own fellow soldiers turning on them than they are about being reprimanded for saying no.
That might be the point. Deploy the military in a low stakes situation to see who listens. Kick all the defactors out of the military. Then, when you actually need them, you are left with a military full of loyalists.
I think attempting that would instantly prompt an international crisis for no reason other than the fact that the US would instantly be reduced to a sliver of its usual operating military strength.
Forget the military turning on itself, at that point the EU are sending troops over for an intervention.
Forget the military turning on itself, at that point the EU are sending troops over for an intervention.
Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your judicial and regulatory distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt no not misuse regional names for foods. Resistance is negotiable in parliament, but will take a long time to do so.
The USA is it’s own continent, noone is going to attempt to send troops over. A self coup like that is very plausible, it’s been done many times before in other countries and there’s nothing exceptional about the USA in this regard.
Trump has repeatedly stated a desire to pull out of NATO, and the republicans broadly have been critical of our involvement in Ukraine. Our current military posture is one of asking if 3 wars at once is too much (Taiwan, Ukraine, and Gaza). Besides, the US would still have nukes and 2 oceans. I think Trump has room to scale back US military capacity in favor of his personal interests.
Eliminating the vast majority of Military personnel from the ranks over not understanding that the US military swears its oaths to the constitution, not to any one figure, is actually not just a mere scale back.
Trump wouldn’t give a shit though and neither would the other fascists.
But the people in the military with the tanks and guns would.
I don’t necessarily buy that. 30% of the population are Trump supporters and that includes a large number of people in the military and veterans. I can see the military acting in favor of the fascists.
Oooh, You see the scary smart level of evil.
So are these military members who help “overthrow” the current rule going to wear a specific color? Like Brown Shirts, for instance?
It’s not that easy. You could lose the wrong kind of people, let leaders, have rank imbalance. It’s not one big pool of people. I mean what if 70% refuse? We just neuter ourselves?
As far as active duty folks go, I agree with you. But the overwhelming likelihood is that it would be National Guard troops deployed in this manner, not Regular Army. In my limited experience working with Guard units, they vary pretty widely in terms of training and professionalism.
Hmm, maybe that could introduce some variability but I’d point to the DC riots where NG troops were so ashamed of what they were doing that several confessed to reporters that they were lying to their families and saying they weren’t deployed for that.
Ultimately it’ll end up coming down to how willing your typical boots on the ground in the moment soldier would react to being given such a wildly unconstitutional order as to openly engage in hostilities against dissenters, to that end I believe the US shares Germany’s protection of the right to refuse an unlawful order and to arrest the superior issuing and trying to force it.
I also think most military higher ups tend to air at least on the side of not being flagrant about contempting the general lean of the public against a more right wing posture, so I’d place decent odds that Trump would be playing with the possibility of the US military going on strike rather than assisting his attempt at being a big strong boss man and locking up everyone who disagrees.
We could debate what a general strike would do to the US economy, but we can all agree that the USM going on strike would more or less instantly prompt constitutional crisis mode.
Yeah, it would be a dangerous move for Trump, certainly. I’m cautiously optimistic about the military not supporting a fascist coup, but a lot less sanguine about them participating in a general strike. Regardless, it’s frustrating how many people seem to think the military is just the cops with bigger guns. The culture is completely different. If anything, I’d say the average soldier’s mentality hews much closer to “Protect and Serve”, rather than toxic warrior-cop “civilians are the enemy” bullshit that infects seemingly every police department.
The military is there to preserve the system and nothing more. It’ll mow down dissenters regardless of who they are. The military is ultimately the only branch that holds any real power since they’re the ones with greater access to violence anyway, and could just hold a coup and take over the government the same way they do in third world countries.
When you post these kinds of c/i’m14andthisisdeep takes, completely devoid of nuance, it just makes it seem like you don’t have a single clue what you’re talking about. No offense intended, I honestly edited this comment several times, attempting to make it more civil.
When you dismiss sound arguments and obvious facts with an appeal to a sub that doesn’t even exist on Lemmy yet, we know you’re just a hopeless retard who doesn’t want to hear the truth, will only get people killed and should not be listened to or respected.
Yeah except how the military isn’t an independent institution and any attempt to try would immediately be met with having their entire budget cut their leaders arrested and every soldier who even breathed agreement with the notion being given their own cell in the newly built supermax prison made to order just for them, assuming they aren’t all executed for treason and insurrection that is.
Good thing they sent a strong message to rioters that the consequences for storming the Capitol to overturn an election is… maybe a couple of years in prison maximum. I’m sure that’s enough to dissuade Trump from trying again. He wouldn’t want to hurt his supporters, would he? /s (every sentence)
They would have to do something about Posse Comitatus first.
“The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which removed the military from regular civil law enforcement, was enacted in response to the abuses resulting from the extensive use of the army in civil law enforcement during the Civil War and the Reconstruction. The Act allows legislated exceptions.”
That “something” might just turn out to be as simple as “ignore it”.
I mean, I guess, they could try… but then they would be delivering unlawful orders to the military. That likely won’t go the way they think it will go.
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The military has been deployed against the civilian populace before, re the Ohio State massacre. This would be on a whole other level, but there is precedent.
That was the National Guard, not the Army proper. A little different. Granted, not if you’re on the other side of the rifles it’s not.
What difference would it even make? People in body armor with guns and training and tanks will effectively subjugate a population no matter what label you apply to them.
Because the US Army is not allowed to operate inside the United States.
The National Guard can be called out by the Governor.
Like fascists are gonna give a shit. Neither is the military; their oath to the Constitution doesn’t mean shit; all that will affect them is the consequences for not following orders and they don’t want to get kicked out or court-martialed, so they’ll do what they’re told regardless of what it is.
True enough, but if we’re being a bit pedantic anyway you actually said military, not army. The national guard are absolutely military. They even occasionally get deployed overseas.
Edit: also my bad referring to it as “Ohio State”. It was Kent State University which is in Ohio
It’s cool, I knew what you meant! :)
Because, as we’ve seen, Trump would totes follow the Rule of Law…then again, who needs silly things like Laws when you become the self-declared Lord Emperor after “fixing” America.
Why do you think Tuberville is deliberately crippling the officer corps?
My personal theory is that I’m taking him at his word. He disagrees with military policy of facilitating transfers of personnel in support of reproductive rights.
But a lot of his blocks are racist as well.
“abuses… during the Civil War and the Reconstruction”, as if there wasn’t a bunch of states that not only rebelled, but refused to enforce Federal law after the civil war.
Cute that you think Trump believes he’s beholden to the law.
Oh, I know he doesn’t. The SOLDIERS on the other hand…
You better be damn well confident they won’t obey his orders.
Oh, you can’t COUNT on anything, but I would hope enough of the people in charge would just ignore his bullshit.
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Trump was the exemplary student of “Escalation 101” at Dicks University.
They’re going to meet some metaphorical roadblocks along the military chain of command, and they’ll meet physical roadblocks of well equipped citizens who won’t stand for this.
Not to start a conspiracy but I was wondering if the single GOP member holding up all military promotions was all him taking the fall/ getting ready for only promoting those who will follow suit. Hopefully it can’t work like that, but it would make sense
I worry that most of the “well armed citizens” will be thrilled to support him in this.
This. And also most civilians have a working self-preservation instinct. They will duck and run the moment shots are being fired. Hell, there are even cops who are like this. Everyone who thinks of himself a Rambo will have those sudden tummy aches the moment shit goes down.
The first part maybe, but the second - no.
There might be pockets of small arms fire and a few civ x mil casualties, but anything beyond that is pure fantasy. It would quickly become a question of “are you willing to go on a kamikaze guaranteed suicide mission to be heard and die at the hands of the US military, now, today, in protest?”
“They can’t stop us all!”
True, but you don’t have “us” all. You think my 99 year old grandmother is going to fight the US military? What about my friends 5 year old? What about my father in law who cares for another elderly relative and is their only hope of survival? What about my wife who needs regular medication?
There are so many of us who, despite our extreme ideological opposition to fascism simply wouldn’t be effective infantry. Hell even most people who regularly hunt deer and shoot guns daily at the range will fall to military tactics, because hunting a garrison of soldiers in vehicles, with air support and explosives, who shoot back, and have been trained in how to reinforce their positions etc is very different to shooting a static paper target that’s not behind cover in a straight line ahead of you at eye level.
I reckon, if I got the jump on an unsuspecting soldier who wasn’t expecting it, and I was armed, I’d have a 55% chance of murdering him. Add just one other person watching his back and I’d be dead before I could do more than bruise him.
The 2A Fantasy of fighting back against a tyrannical government requires a well-organized militia. Which means putting Sunday school teachers, middle managers, dentists and retail workers through months of boot camp training. During those months, who’s fighting?
Just look at Israel / Palestine. We’d be Palestine. Yes, a few guerilla tactics would kill dozens of soldiers, who’d then retaliate and kill thousands of civilians, while the rest of the world goes, “Oh no.”
I’ll add on that the first part is also a fantasy.
I’ve known and worked with a lot of “military leadership” over the decades. If they were as heroic and as dedicated to protecting The Constitution as people pretend they are: They would not have waited on January 6th. They would have decided “the exiting president is engaging in a coup and the vice president is MIA. And the Speaker is under siege. Autobots, roll out”
Instead, they sat on their hands and waited to see how things shake out.
Which is what would happen. Martial law? Cool, “this is what we trained for”. Putting down uprisings? MAYBE there would be some light hesitation until one gravy seal got overly excited and shot their load off. At which point, the training kicks in and they expect everyone to say “thank you for your service” for the rest of their lives because they put down the insurgents.
Because soldiers are not inherently evil. But they sure do commit a LOT of war crimes and crimes against humanity. And that is because they are indoctrinated to follow orders and care more about “the man in the foxhole next to you” than anyone else.
And the people who make it a career of indoctrinating those dumbass kids and sending them to fuck up the world? They aren’t going to be rocking the boat.
that’s how you turn a cold civil war into a hot civil war
And yet not a single person with the power to do anything right now - is doing anything right now.
Motherfucker is still outright disrespecting our entire system of justice - or whatever is left of it for the rich.
Well if they actually punished people when they did something wrong, then it wouldn’t look very good for decorum now would it?
If we cared for decorum then we would’ve never stopped wearing the white wigs.
Straight facts
This is not true at all. There are many very powerful people working very hard to make sure that he’s not reelected. That you don’t know about it says more about you than it does anyone else. You just aren’t paying attention.
Correct. That’s the plan
Honestly, I think that if Trump is in the General Election as a candidate, it could be civil war regardless of who wins. The hard right loves him, and would revolt if he lost, with cries of election stealing, and the hard left would lose their shit that they had to deal with him for another 4 years if he won. I’m hoping he gets disqualified, though I could see even that ending badly. At this point, I’m thinking a cabin in the woods is the best bet.
You guys only got one isolated revolt last time, and remarkably anyone who had a gun illegally didn’t fire it, and anyone who had them legally didn’t fire until it was the last option. Hopefully it won’t get out of hand if he loses again, and I feel a whole lot better that someone stable is in charge for the lead up to a potential transfer of power this time.
All that said, I don’t have high hopes. Bo Burnham said it best: how is the best case scenario Joe Biden
I’m jumping ship for Europe personally
I hate this fucking timeline so much. So many in the media seem to be working toward normalizing this obvious march into fascism, and pivoting to stupid horse race bullshit (the average voter thinks Biden is “too old” and so on).
If donnie “wins” the election (likely only the EC again) then this country is just so fucked. It’s over at that point.
It’s obvious that 2016 is the branching point of where we deviated from the prime timeline. There it’s just too much foreshadowing about Hillary being the first female president, and everything seem to go wrong when we killed that gorilla. He Quantum immortalited it so he only died in this shitty timeline
Harambe was murdered by a time traveler, there is no other option.
sigh Dicks out
Wait, are we doing dicks out for Harambe again?Last time I did it, I was told I wasn’t allowed at the Zoo anymore.
Nah I think it was when Nixon won the Presidency. You can draw a straight line from that corrupt fuck to so many of our current problems.
If he wins, we lose our democracy, it’s as simple as that. I don’t know that it will be permanent since I think that most of our institutions are strong enough to resist or at least slow-walk the implementation of a truly authoritarian state architecture, but it is going to be very ugly and a lot of Americans are going to suffer.
