this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
347 points (96.8% liked)
Pleasant Politics
216 readers
2 users here now
Politics without the jerks.
This community is watched over by a ruthless robot moderator to keep out bad actors. I don't know if it will work. Read [email protected] for a full explanation. The short version is don't be a net negative to the community and you can post here.
Rules
Post political news, your own opinions, or discussion. Anything goes.
All posts must follow the slrpnk sitewide rules.
No personal attacks, no bigotry, no spam. Those will get a manual temporary ban.
founded 4 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Which side of the war do they think the U.S. military will be on?
That’s always been my thing when I’ve heard of civil war breaking out.
Like sure… I imagine there’s a not insignificant portion of military personnel who would be on the side of these dipshits…. But what about the equipment? Sure a good bit of things will likely come up missing in inventory, but I’d be remiss to say they’ll make off with too many F-16’s or Abrams Main Battle Tanks.
Billy Bob with his Tactical Fat™️ and his AR-15 won’t be very effective on the urban battlefield.
What worries me is that fighting an insurgency has and is always going to be hard. They know the terrain, the people, and can be unpredictable.
Sure, the military does tons of training for all sorts of different situations and terrain. But I think as we see with Ukraine, a lot of can be done with relatively low tech munitions. And let's not forget the military surplus and retired equipment in the hands of local PDs which aren't going to align with the military.
I think the military has tons of tech and equipment. But that's not a guarantee they will stomp y'all queda. I think they'll be conservative with their weapons and gear. They aren't going to carpet bomb farms.
There are certainly plenty of people who will keep up the fight… but you’ve also got to remember how hard it will be for y’all queda (you’re god damned right in stealing this…) to keep up the fight for long.
Ukraine has a centralized structure who is processing intelligence and informing battlefield commanders… and they’re fighting an occupying force. There’s no occupying force here. There’s a bunch of pissed off rednecks and douchebags and small pockets get organized (Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, etc), but when these groups meet actual military opposition, they’ll fold like chairs and give up the paramilitary cosplay…
The trouble is that 10% of those cosplayers will turn out to be effective enough to be trouble
gravy seals
meal team six
Generally speaking, the American military leadership is very mission oriented and not interested in politics. POGs wouldn't muck around in that. I think the bigger concern would be state guard forces being ordered to do something illegal by a governor, and the federal military brass going "we don't want anything to do with that, sort it out in court and congress" and other states following suit.
You’re assuming that Project 2025 won’t succeed at firing all the sensible military leadership (like all of it down to the O-7s) and replacing them with True Believers.
In Ukraine in 2014, they had retired military people coming out of retirement and joining up with the protest movements and kind of showing them what to do, in the semi-shooting war… would it play out that way in the US? Or some other way?
I’m a little bit exaggerating what level it might realistically get to, and I sort of share your optimism on some level, actually… but it’s fucking terrifying to be in a position of depending on the military leadership to be the backstop against the takeover.
Fair, but I don't personally feel it would get to that level before courts or congress got involved. Congress has to approve appointments for senior leadership. The UCMJ has regulations related to dismissal. And if they fire all competent command and replace them with generally inept cronies...there would be a very big block of very angry and very competent ex military leaders to contend with.
Yeah. One thing I very much like about the US military is that the high levels of the brass have a pretty heavy sprinkling of people like Mattis and Milley who are pretty heavily pro democracy and not shy about speaking up about it.
Idk what happened with Mueller and just leaving to the hands of fate, but I feel like Milley in the analogous situation as regards a new civil war would just suit up and say yo we’re starting the Free ~~French~~ US forces, get the fuck on board loser, let’s go
True Believers, football coaches and racecar drivers:
https://www.newsweek.com/sports/nascar-news-donald-trump-makes-bold-driver-proposal-military-leadership-1930831
A number of high ranking US military officers have taken sidelong glances at the political scene. Colin Powell was kept out of the 2000 race by Bush, when he was offered the Sec. State position. Wesley Clark tried to run for the Dem nomination in 2008. Stanley McCrystal and David Petraeus flirted with the GOP nod in 2012, while both advocating for a "National Service" requirement for all US Citizens. Joe Sestak ran as a presidential nominee for the Democrats in 2016. 82 sitting US House Reps are ex-military as are 17 Senators, with the vast majority (72/25) aligning with the Republican Party. Plenty of aspiring state and local politicians use their military careers as launch pads for elected office.
The problem most officers suffer from is a complete lack of charisma. All these people suck at working a crowd. Put Mad Dog Mad Ass at the top of a ticket and it'll tank the moment he opens his mouth. It isn't that American military leadership lacks political ambition, its that they're a chronically awful picks. Even the ostensibly photogenic ones, like Tom "Unapologetically a Fascist" Cotton and Dan "The Pirate King" Crenshaw, absolutely suck dick at building up a popular base.
100% the liberal side. Yes, the military is conservative, but in the "conservatives give us a larger budget" kind of way. And not in the "we hate minorities" kind of way. The military is way more diverse than one would think. Manly because Jim Bob who is a racist would never make it past boot camp, because people with prejudices don't make good teammates.
Were you ever in the military? Because that really doesn’t align with my experience at all.
Yes, there are some racist in the military but far less since millennials and the Obama administration. Even less in leadership positions. But no hard-core neo Nazies or white supremacists anymore. You can look at the demographics alone of the military and far more women and minorities are enlisted percapita than ever before. I will say misogyny is still very high comparably. But also if you look across economic backgrounds there's no way the military will rise up for the wealthy elites in the conservative party. If there was a civil war is guess somewhere around 20% to 30% would defect to the confederacy, but none of the equipment would fall to their hands.
I hope you’re right (or, better yet, that we never have to find out), but that feels a bit optimistic to me based on my experience.
I mean, conservative voters don't really get that they're supporting wealthy people who hate them.
But in regards to the military, officers have always been more liberal and that's even more of a thing now. A lot of enlisted folks will just do what their CO says, especially if it doesn't involve going on the offensive. And since the liberal side would almost certainly be the defenders, that would further hurt rebel numbers.
My experience in the Army was that lots of racists join, but most of them are cured of their racism before they finish bootcamp.
Different branch, but I remember plenty of folks making it through boot and still being plenty racist. I also remember watching a lot of folks from my time swing way harder right than I had expected or hoped after 2016.
That’s not to say you’re wrong or anything, just thought it was worth sharing my experience since it didn’t really line up with the post upstream. I’m glad you had a different experience.
I went through basic in the 90's, and we certainly weren't as radicalized and polarized then as we are now, so that could have something to do with the different experience. Or maybe it was just because it was a different branch. Also, basic wasn't co-ed when I was in, and men don't tend to form as tight of bonds when women are around, since they compete with each other for the woman's attention instead of banding together to overcome adversity. I saw that happen in AIT, which was co-ed.
Honestly? It'll probably be a messy split.
They can't decide if the Woke Deep State has bimbofied the American military elite or MAGA has the liberal pedophile cartels surrounded and the Patriots Are In Control. Just sorta depends on what kind of drugs Alex Jones just took before the episode started. Either way, its all fucking fan fiction.
The goal is to juice up the base for election day and milk them for their retirement accounts, not to actually get anyone into the streets. As soon as J6 started, the right-wing zoo crew labeled the whole crowd Antifa Fifth Columnists and started calling for the national guard to surround them and open fire.
I don't think the US military is devoid of MAGAts but--as my younger self would say--I'd like to see them try some shush.
The side that's paying, duh. ;p