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Maybe I'm crazy, but, I believe the Chain of Command will not allow Trump to order military violence on U.S. soil.

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  • [–] 62 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    The US President is not subject to laws, when acting in his official capacity, unless at least 1/2 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate vote to impeach him. So winning the election is a license to do illegal things, if you have enough political support.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    He's been doing illegal tgings since before he was president, he doesn't give a shit and neither anyone else

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    So the answer is very clear, when laws/agreements/contracts/etc. no longer have an effect at all, usually authority becomes solely defined by force and force alone.

    I fear it's only a matter of time before a civil war breaks out.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    There will never be a civil war. Americans are too lazy, selfish, and stupid to actively rise up. You'll get some groups and people trying to rebel, but the masses will just see them as disruptive to their 'comfortable' lives. Ultimately, for all of America's ego and pride, the people are sheep.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 year ago

    The USA is fucked. Your systems have horribly failed to stop him and the rest of the world has no interest in getting into a fight with the strongest country in the world over how many Holocausts it plans to do in its territory (or, realistically, Canadian territory).

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago

    Could stop him or would stop him? SCOTUS has granted him blanket immunity for anything done as an "official act", without bothering to specify exactly what an official act is. This has opened up a Pandora's Box, needless to say. They're literally expanding the power of the President, not limiting it.

    Congress, since it is fully GOP-dominated, will neither impeach him nor attempt to override any veto should they pass laws to curtail his activities. Not that they would, of course.

    The military has a duty to follow the Constitution and is supposed to disregard any orders to the contrary. But whether the military will act according to Trump or the Constitution is an open question. Remember, Trump has removed a number of senior officers whose loyalty to him was in question. And there are a lot of right-wing extremist types in the lower ranks of the military.

    In short, we're probably FUCKED.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 year ago (25 children)

    He is commander in chief of the US military.

    The US military stresses disobeying illegal orders.

    So the simple answer is the US military chain of command respecting their oath to the constitution over loyalty to Trump.

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  • [+] 32 points 1 year ago (11 children)
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    And they basically did nothing but stand around. I think they arrested one guy? And that one guy was most likely being an asshole and pushed his luck past the brink. Also, there was only 700 of them. You couldn't control my little hick town with 700 soldiers. LOL, they'd be hilariously outgunned by the rednecks and retired military. In any case, now they're gone.

    Yes, it was an egregiously corrupt use of the military, but that's not even close to using weapons of war on an American city.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Remind me again how many Marines opened fire on civilians.

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  • [+] 12 points 1 year ago (1 child)
  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago

    No Marine obeyed an illegal order, and that's the whole point of this thread.

    They were used in a very narrow scope as defined by law, protecting specific government buildings.

    It was Trump being a bully and grandstanding, but other than the optics we're talking about, it was really a lame event.

    The vast majority of the 2k Marines did what Marines always do when they don't have specific orders on a shit deployment, the sat around or caught up on rack time.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Marines opening fire? I think only during the Rodney King riots.

    Any military branches opening fire? The Kent State Shooting and The Bonus Army Incident.

    Any military branches just bombing the shit out of civilians on US soil? The Battle of Blair Mountain and The Philadelphia MOVE Bombing

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago*

    You mean like all of the air force brass, logistics commanders, pilots, all the way down to the MPs, who have been consistent in collaborating following illegal orders to fly black bagged and chained legal US residents that were refused due process to foreign concentration camps?

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  • [+] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)
  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    The chain of command goes from the secretary of defense all the way down to the most junior enlisted personnel.

    You seem to assume I meant the joint chiefs or some small hand full of senior commanders.

    Generals don't pull the trigger, and as someone else pointed out, the logistics involved with bombing a city includes hundreds of service members.

    Not sure where you get off calling me clueless as my initial response exactly answers the original question.

    If not for honorable service members respecting their oaths and the UCMJ, there is literally nothing stopping Trump from bombing Chicago or LA.

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  • [+] -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    If your point is that this mechanism won't work, then I'm assuming your point is that nothing can stop Trump.

    Doesn't mean my answer was wrong or clueless, only that the means to stop him has failed.

    If you think something else is stopping him, I'd be very curious what that might be.

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  • [+] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Well, let's see.

    It won't be his moral fiber.

    It won't be China or Russia the only two military powers that have a chance to have any influence on CONUS affairs.

    Maybe his desperate desire for public approval as I suspect major ordinance dropped on a US population center isn't going to poll well, but I'd hate to count on that.

    Me? Stop the president from doing literally anything? You vastly over estimate my powers.

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  • [+] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The chances of me personally firebombing anything is functionally 0.

    I certianly expect someone else to handle this for me, the men and women of the US military who aren't going to a US city into fucking Dresden.

    My suggestion was to rely on the mechanism which has handled this type of issue without fail since day one.

    Yours is to encite random acts of partisan violence.

    I'm going stick with my plan thanks.

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  • [+] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Not wringing my hands, in fact I never stated whether I was actually against Trump bombing cities, I just answered what was stopping him.

    That was the question, and the answer is still the same.

    As far as my lifting a finger? Well, short of the usual civic duties like voting and such, I'm not getting involved.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago* (4 children)

    You need hundreds of people all working together to drop a bomb on a US city. Commanders, officers, maintenance workers, ordinance loaders, pilots, navigators, even base MPs.

    You really think you can get all of these people to agree to drop a bomb on a civilian US city, just on a Trump whim?

    Come now.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago

    The smaller the pieces you divide a job into, the less likely that any of the individual steps understand the entire process.

    You tell one guy to bomb NYC, he's going to stop and think about that.

    You tell a hundred people to push a few buttons, and they're just doing their job.

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  • [+] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Many of these people are trying to do their 20 and get out with retirement. They're not going to quit like it's a shit job at McDonald's.

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  • [+] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Arguing with US nationalism is fucking merry-go-round. They're always expecting that one hero that'll topple generations of conditioning, like a superman. When they've shown time and again they are very capable of horrible fucking shit throughout the history.

    They act like their contrymen are somehow morally superior group of people who stopped killing civillians at Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria or even their own countrymen. History books say no, their policians hide the crimes (revealed years later) and these people still eat the propaganda for breakfast.

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    [–] 14 points 1 year ago

    Keep in mind that he already ordered the military forces to siege US cities, and they gone through the process of doing it while refusing to escalate into actual violence.

    Trump doesn't seem to have that much control. I'm not sure he would be arrested if he ordered a strike, but I don't think it would happen either.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Look at it this way, Trump is legally capable of firing the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank (Jerome Powell), and he hates that man's fucking guts. Practically speaking though, Trump can't sack the guy without sending shockwaves through the financial world and tanking our economy. At the moment, Trump is trying to trump up (heh) a reason to fire Powell because he can't do it by fiat.

    If his hands are tied over this thing he can legally do, you think he'd be able to bomb American cities? Think even the stoutest MAGA would applaud the bombing of New Orleans? They're turning on him over the pedo thing, destroying an American city is two orders of magnitude worse.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    On paper there's plenty that could. The Supreme Court could have stepped in to stop a lot of this. Executive orders only stand in places where a full fledged law from congress doesn't cover the issue. The military is theoretically as obligated to disobey an unlawful order as they are to obey a lawful one and states are theoretically pretty insulated from federal interference except in a few explicit areas.

    But, we don't live on paper and none of those protections exist unless there are people out there who are ready, willing, and able, to act on them. What happens if the Supreme Court somehow manages to rule against the administration and they just flagrantly disregard the order? What happens if Trump orders the military to start attacking US citizens openly or starts an illegal war without congressional approval? What happens if Trump runs for president again in 2028? Or just says he's president for life and we're not doing elections anymore?

    The answer is nothing, unless people stand up against him. And... so far... we haven't seen much of that. Not from people in government at any rate. We've seen a bit from normal folks on the ground in places like LA, but our government's been working to neuter the power of popular protest since the civil rights protests, perhaps even earlier. So reasonable people can disagree on the efficacy of that.

    I really don't want to echo the doomer line I've seen written here a lot, but yeah, we're probably fucked. Like maybe if something was done like... a decade ago? Two? Maybe we wouldn't be in this situation. But... as things stand? I don't even know if the damage from the first Trump presidency can ever truly be repaired and more damage is being done on a weekly, almost a daily basis. Personally? I think it's only a matter of time before this man breaks the global economy irreparably. In a way that simply can't be swept under the rug again. Domestically? Who the fuck knows at this point? I have to resist the urge to laugh out loud whenever people ask where I see myself in five years because at this point I've got no idea what the next two weeks are gonna hold.

    So... yeah. Fun times in the ol US of A.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 year ago
    [–] 10 points 1 year ago

    How familiar are you with the concept of civil war?

    If he would go to bomb an American city a civil war will start. Then they authority to stop him or not will rely on the winner of the war.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago*

    I'm no expert but also long as the USA doesn't bomb another country isn’t it's kind of the responsibility of the USA itself and their people?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    We'll ultimately be rescued by an invading foreign army: Canada, Mexico or China.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago
    [–] 2 points 1 year ago
    [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    No, the USA is not fucked.

    Everything happening now has happened before, and worse, and the USA has endured. It may take some time, but the US will be fine.

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  • [+] -4 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [+] -7 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    You're either trolling or you're too far gone from reality to get back.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)
  • [–] -4 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Noone, I just think that anyone who thinks he would get away with bombing a city is either trolling or has a tinfoil hat so heavy they would not get phone reception under it.

    I'll assume it's a troll and thought it useless to feed him attention.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Before Trump' first term I didn't think any president would get away with:

    • overturn Roe v. Wade
    • Accept multi-million dollar bribes from historical enemies
    • Be a convicted felon
    • Incite an insurrection
    • Deploy marines into an American city
    • Refuse to return documents of the highest security clearance
    • Have publicly supported, criminal proceedings against him dismissed.
    • Blatantly destroy the 100+ year friendly relationship with Canada
    • Demand personal loyalty pledges from his appointees
    • Publicly ask Russia to help him during his presidential campaign
    • Ask a govenor to fraudulently manufacture electoral votes
    • Public threats to private citizens about revoking their citizenship
    • No due process extraditions to brutal, non-American, non-Democratic countries prison's
    • Suddenly abandon military bases leaving allies fucked
    • Tarrifing the world ... I'm tired of writing this shit.

    At this point Trump could bomb a U.S. city, claim it was a terrorist attack, and just dismiss any agency that contradicted him. Fox 'news' would tell their viewers that the Liberals were blaming Trump just because they hate him, and they would fall in line. Any news program that claimed otherwise would be labeled "fake news". The sheep that watch Fox news would cancel any host who dared question Trump.

    There is no one holding him accountable for anything. The Supreme Court told him to turn planes around and he just didn't. If Trump dropped a bomb on a U.S. city, assuming you could convince people he did it (which I doubt), who is it that goes to the White House and drag him to court? No one. They wouldn't let anyone in.

    The only solution is protest. If 3% of Americans protested things would change. Historically, 3% is the number. But the longer they wait the harder it is, and they are all convinced they can't do anything.

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  • [+] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    The 3.5% rule is a concept in political science that states that when 3.5% of the population of a country protest nonviolently against a government, that government is likely to fall from power. The rule was formulated by Erica Chenoweth in 2013. It arose out of insights originally published by political scientist Mark Lichbach in 1995 in his book The Rebel's Dilemma: Economics, Cognition, and Society.

    Non-Violent

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  • [+] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's funny that in 2025 people still think that just saying shit on the internet means anything.

    Sources, or stfu dude.

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  • [+] 1 point 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 child)
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Sources for over 3.5%: see the 2023 election results. 60 million people were willing to vote for a genocidal prick over trump.

    This is the point I am discussing in this thread.

    I, personally, did not come up with the 3.5% number. Rather, I read what was written by people who publish their findings and rationale. I've provided sources that informed my opinion. My opinion could be wrong. If so I look forward to changing it, and thank you for taking the time to inform me better.

    To the point: I don't see how quoting election figures counters the 3.5% number regarding protests. 'Election' and 'protest' are not synonymous, and the relationship between them are not as simplistic as you infer.

    To clarify, and to the (certainly unintentional) strawman-ing of some of what I have posted:

    • Re: No-Kings Protests - I've never suggested that all protests are effective. I don't believe that at all. I said protests the size of 3.5% of a population affect change. I'm not aware of any protest that has been that well attended yet.
    • Re: Violence - My point was to counter the incorrect claim that the 3.5% referred to violent protests. I'm not making any further claim beyond that. I've cited the source material
    • Re: Support - I've never claimed that 3.5% support will change anything. I've only stated that a protest of 3.5% population does cause change, historically.
    • Re: Idiocy - I can confirm that I am an idiot. That's why I read books, because I've found that the facts often are unintuitive. The good news is that if we read what people have figured out before critically, then we often don't have to relearn things the hard way. I highly recommend this process over the alternative.
    • Re: Sources - I've provided sources for you so you can verify that I'm not just pulling random statements out of my ass. I don't expect you will actually look at them, but objecting to them with anecdotes and unrelated reasoning seems like a fruitless way to spend your time. But please, continue if you'd like...
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