Like the war with Iran, I don't see this happening either, but for other reasons. One, I'm pretty certain state governors are the only ones who can deploy the National Guard. Two, I'm also pretty certain that while they've been used for peacekeeping in the past, I'm pretty certain the National Guard doesn't have very in depth law enforcement training. Third, the backlash from the travel ban would probably be tame as hell compared to the backlash that this would probably see. If I'm wrong on any one of these assumptions, please point it out to me, so I can adjust how I feel about this. I dunno. A small part of me is worried about something like this happening, but this really seems far away from realistic. I just can't really imagine it.
This is the liability of handing over the controls to a bunch of mental midgets who can't even tie their own shoes. They have no idea how this shit works, and are just poking buttons to see what happens. Hope they don't find the big red button while flailing around like Arthur Dent in the Heart of Gold...
His 'Fake News' thing is getting a bit freaky. It's like his 'Crooked Hillary' line. He is talking past us, and directly to a subgroup. I kid you not when I say that I think his media survey is meant for discovery. 'Who agrees with the crazy shit I am saying? Great, give me your contact info.' Volunteers are what he's going to want next.
I freely agree that Steve Bannon would love to stock his Army of Darkness from like-minded Internet dweebs. But this isn't the way he'd do it. Remember - I'm on that list. Have been since November. He's preachin' to the choir already. And what he wants is adulation. He's already campaigning again. It's been four weeks. He's been on vacation twice, called a hasty press conference to riff and slag on the press, and is running off this weekend to surround himself with crazed, cheering sycophants. Have you seen this shit? Dude can't even get his wife to come to the office. Which happens to be down the hall from the bedroom. Which she doesn't sleep in. And if you can't even get Trophy Wife #3 to show up, is it worth it?
Guard members can be nationalized, and I think the president could nationalize them for this. But it's insane to do so. Alabama desegregation is a great example. The Alabama governor deployed the Guard to stop desegregation, so the president nationalized the same troops to force it. Oh god this. As a former member of the Army National Guard, they barely have army training. They're trained, and I'm proud of my service, but they need additional training before deploying anywhere for anything. The Cold War philosophy was the front line troops would slow the soviets down long enough to deploy the best regular Army units. The lower tier regular Army would follow in weeks, and the Guard would follow in months. Even when doing their primary jobs. Pretty much the only thing the Guard can do out the gate is fill sandbags for floods.I'm pretty certain state governors are the only ones who can deploy the National Guard.
I'm also pretty certain that while they've been used for peacekeeping in the past, I'm pretty certain the National Guard doesn't have very in depth law enforcement training.
They were used in Detroit in 1967, along with army regulars. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Detroit_riot Mitt Romney's dad and Johnson brought them in, respectively. This is very different, but IMO it may happen. Trump is just a major terror attack away from taking us all to where they want to go. I'm sure they know it.
Yes. Okay. But this example, like coffeesp00ns' example, while both tragic, are very different. In this instance, The National Guard isn't being deployed to a single location as a response to an event. What's being proposed is probably a long term, multi-state effort using an organization that isn't designed to do the task that's proposed, legally or structurally. The amount of coordination needed would be a nightmare that would again make the travel ban look like a breezy Sunday afternoon. The amount of legal hassle involved to even try something like this would be mind boggling. The amount of legal backlash, even moreso. Then there would be the backlash of public opinion, both from a large number of concerned Americans and from the international community. The risk of that alone would probably prevent this. I understand the concern, I really do. There's a lot to be worried about and there's a lot going on and there's a lot of information out there with very alarmist spins and I think we need to start realizing that whenever we read these articles. People are doing and saying some crazy things, sure. There's also some really far out there stuff that's being focused on and some things being blown out of proportion. Look at everyone talking about Russian ships off the coast and Russian jets buzzing our ships. They did that all the time when Obama was President and they didn't cause nearly the sensation that's being caused now. I'm not going to lie. I'm scared right now. I'm scared about a lot of things, like nasty things people are saying in the internet, whether or not my job and my wife's job are at risk, the safety and well being of the minorities in my city, the well being of our environment (I think I read they just passed a law saying mining debris can be released into rivers again), and so many more things. If we're gonna get through this though, we can't always go around like a bunch of chicken littles or gossiping hens every time there is a leak or a sensational rumor. When we do, we give rumor mongers power over us for one, and two, every time we freak out over smoke when there's no fire, we risk looking foolish and erode our credibility. I could be dead wrong about this, and if I am it will probably be the worse thing I'm ever wrong about this, but I honestly and truly think this is one of those things that just won't happen. Edit: By "we", I'm not saying you or me or coffeesp00ns or anyone else is out of line and being a bunch of chicken littles. It's more of a rhetorical argument. I don't mean to insult anyone here.
I'm just not sure. We have a President that just today tweeted that the media is the enemy of the American people. There's chicken little, and then there's I am no longer underestimating this guy, and I do not have faith that this Congress has backbone enough to reign him in, or that what little they have won't be lost in the face of a major security crisis. So many historical upheavals seem impossible just years previous. I know that sounds extreme, but I am not trying to be hyperbolic to make a point. Will that memo be realized? I don't know, but I won't be surprised if it is.
So... it took years before we heard "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Within United States." from Jan 20 to Sep 10 we had a president that wasn't great? but he was mostly pseudopresidential in a sort of absent-Reagan kinda way. We knew he spent too long on vacation and we got the sense that he wasn't quite good enough to fill his daddy's shoes but when the towers came down, by damn he was the President. And we got DHS, and the PATRIOT act, and pallets of hundos vanishing into war zones. Because by damn he was the President and he knew how to act presidential. Now? I will give you even odds that should the shit hit the fan, McCain and Schumer and the rest of the grownups decide that they can more easily handle things their own bad selves, thanks. I don't care how badly you love your country and the democratic process there are a goodly number of senators, representatives, judges and bureaucrats that aren't going to let Steve Bannon play soldiers. Especially if it so much as hints at Russia.
I really hope so. It seems most reasonable that this administration will either implode, or at the very least be reigned in. But it also seemed most reasonable that he wouldn't have won the Presidency. He sure knows how to bring much of the US with him, and if there was cooperation with Russia, he's up for anything.
In the first case, tens of millions of reasonable people assumed that the system would work appropriately, as that's what we had been reassured of for months/years. In the second case, tens of millions of reasonable people have had the failure of the system amply demonstrated. The prevailing sentiment among establishment Democrats and Republicans alike is "this wasn't supposed to happen." That's hell on mandates. Under Bush, at least, it was "I guess this is a weird constitutional corner case." Remember: there are 318 million people in the United States. 63 million of them voted for Trump. Those that did are not well-represented in centers of commerce, governance or art - everyone wants to paint Trumpism as a populist uprising but the fact of the matter is, our electoral college favors the Hinterlands. The skew that brought him to office is the skew that has him excoriated in all popular media - the bulk of the country is not behind Donald Trump and don't let anyone tell you differently.
Millions of people around the world participated in the women's march. The public and legal response to the travel ban was nearly immediate and it was loud and insistent. Even though Obama deported illegal immigrants by the truckload during his term, ICE is now under intense public scrutiny because of Trmp's rhetoric. People are calling, mailing, and faxing their congressmen in droves on an almost daily basis, to the point where a lot of them are hesitant to hold town halls during this recess because they're concerned about overwhelming turnouts. ACLU donations are up, the amount of feedback we're getting from the international community is up, and on and on I can go. Trust me. If there was a time where I felt confident people are no longer sitting on their hands, it's now. That said, there's a huge difference between congress letting people like DeVos getting a position in our government and the government as a whole letting something as insane as this proposal happen. Both are wrong, but the second is so wrong that it's practically infeasible. The only way that Trump could pull something like this off is either A) a major national event happened to turn the tide of public opinion or B) he scales back the scope of the operation to where it's actually something that can be pulled off both in regards to an actual operation as well as in regards to the confines of the law.There's chicken little, and then there's . . .
It's more real than I'm comfortable with, unfortunately. I definitely wouldn't put it past some state governors, either. Kent State Massacre to be fair, that's just precedent for the NG being used as a violent force, not necessarily being used to en masse deport illegal, but tax paying, immigrants.