I think 'occupy' is not a helpful frame here, because different levels of force create different paths that resistance might follow. Napoleon overthrew the French revolutionary government with only a few hundred grenadiers.
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What prevents Trump from overthrowing the government with ICE is not an artificial 'occupation ratio' or something, but the presence of other armed bodies (Capitol Police, DC's MPD, the National Guards of Maryland and Virginia) which might intervene to stop something like that.
aug 23, 2025, 5:31 pm • 97 6 • view
One obvious concern here is that those groups are made up of some of his strongest and most reliable supporters.
aug 23, 2025, 8:37 pm • 0 0 • view
Other question is how many people in a variety of agencies would be compromised by having participated in the violence before and those might fear Regime change?
aug 23, 2025, 6:02 pm • 0 0 • view
Creating a precedent that the president just regularly pulls red-state national guard units into the capital opens the door to, for instance, moving those units into DC in preparation for a self-coup in response to a lost election.
aug 23, 2025, 5:33 pm • 125 19 • view
I will believe that you believe what you are saying when you tell me you have not only bought a gun, but you and your gun owning neighbors are organized
aug 23, 2025, 5:34 pm • 1 0 • view
"I will believe this guy who keeps saying how intensely he wants to avoid paths that lead to large scale violence believes that he wants to avoid large scale violence when he buys a gun" is a triumph of failing at reading comprehension.
aug 23, 2025, 5:37 pm • 5 0 • view
what ever your post says that it is likely we will have civil war if you think it is likely , then you prepare
aug 23, 2025, 5:40 pm • 0 0 • view
If you have, in fact bought a gun and have, infact organized emergency Plans with your neighbours you should probably not say so on social Media especially if you have any kind of reach.
aug 24, 2025, 11:37 am • 1 0 • view
yeah
aug 24, 2025, 1:56 pm • 0 0 • view
At which point, the peaceful, democratic methods of resolving disputes will be lost and the question will come to violence. That violent calculus is extremely different. A few hundred ICE guys, backed by a couple thousand passively accepting national guard is enough for a coup...
aug 23, 2025, 5:35 pm • 96 6 • view
...but for, say, a nation-wide campaign of counter-insurgency in response to civil unrest or even effective civil war as a *result* of that self coup? Well, 200,000 wasn't quite enough for Iraq, a country 7 times smaller in population and 20 times smaller in land area.
aug 23, 2025, 5:35 pm • 106 5 • view
The good news is that Hegseth is purging the military of everyone competent.
aug 23, 2025, 5:37 pm • 4 0 • view
And I’d argue that the existence of multiple large, economically, politically powerful cities in the US would make things exponentially more difficult than Iraq. Bagdad had a pop of ~7 mill in 2010, and the second largest city, Najaf, had ~1.1. Seize DC, and you have ~ 20 bigger places to deal with.
aug 23, 2025, 6:14 pm • 6 0 • view
Yeah, so a lot would depend on how much resistance you could expect from US cities.
aug 23, 2025, 6:31 pm • 2 0 • view
And who do you really expect to put their lives on the line? How many? The time to call on all members of the armed services to fulfill their oaths to defend the Constitution is right now. (Reply not directed at you as much as to the general thread.)
aug 23, 2025, 8:00 pm • 0 0 • view
Many of the things being asked of service members are constitutional due to the actions of Congress over the last century. That’s why this is a civ-mil relationship crisis, and why the general populace needs to stop putting this on institutions to stop. 1/
aug 23, 2025, 8:36 pm • 2 0 • view
If the general public aren’t willing to put their lives on the line, we’re going to get exactly the government a disengaged, lazy, someone else should solve it for me population deserves. 2/2
aug 23, 2025, 8:36 pm • 2 0 • view
In this scenario, I take comfort in the fact that wars are ultimately won not by killing some specific % of the enemy, but by breaking the enemy's will to fight, and "self-coup by an unpopular leader with a legally laughable rationale, followed by widespread civil unrest" is a morale killer.
aug 23, 2025, 5:45 pm • 34 1 • view
Also after he fired most of the security state
aug 23, 2025, 5:54 pm • 2 0 • view
an important dynamic here is that DC is only the political center of power. Lots of other countries have a giant metropole where the government, financial, cultural, and population are all centralized. You control that you have the country in other words. But in this case, DC is just A Place.
aug 23, 2025, 5:51 pm • 1 0 • view
when the capital sends out orders and they get ignored is generally when stuff starts to get messy - if they can't be compelled or convinced to obey, at that point you de-facto have a split country, even if it's not legally stated or acknowledged at that point
aug 23, 2025, 6:23 pm • 1 0 • view
You can only resolve disputes peacefully with people who dispute in good faith. With fascists, only the fear of God and lead will work.
aug 23, 2025, 6:37 pm • 1 0 • view
VA seems key here, I wonder if part of the timing was to try to get as many armed personnel in before the VA elections
aug 23, 2025, 6:33 pm • 2 0 • view