but specifically for something like January 6th it makes very little sense to talk about them both as a collective, talking about what they did or didn’t do.
No, it makes perfect sense.
Let's step through the workflow.
- Holy shit. A bunch of armed white people are trying to lynch Congress and the VPOTUS under the orders of the man that was voted out of office.
- Huh. The national guard isn't acting
- I guess that means we also shouldn't act and should just let it play out?
And let's do the obvious tweak that is always ignored in these attempts to Support The Troops
- Holy shit. A bunch of angry hockey fans rushed the border and are going to burn down the White House... again. And the POTUS, for some reason, is not telling us to defend the American people. Maybe he is a Leafs fan?
- Huh. The national guard isn't acting
- I guess that means we also shouldn't act and should just let it play out?
Literally no idea what you are saying here.
I am pointing out the sheer and utter stupidity of insisting the military will save us. Just not THAT military. And I am doing so by extending that to the "it would be humorous if it weren't so true" extreme.
As for the rest: The national guard is the military. You can gla-err, praise them all you want for not unloading on protesters. But the fact of the matter is they were there as a threat in case the protests "got out of hand" and were officially there to support the law enforcement and fat white kids with guns on the ground.
They are the enemy until they stop fucking acting on its behalf.