• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Trump's Coup d'état.

Status
Not open for further replies.
I've said this before the image of the military fighting the populace is so goddamn hilarious if you've spent 2 seconds in the military.

I was in the military for 20 years. Everyone does know it isn't prison right? They let you out. You're not walled off from society.

I don't know if people still have that image of the military from like Gomer Pyle or Major Dad whatever where everyone lives in the barracks or base housing in this little microcosm and do all their shopping at the PX and eat only at the Chowhall and spend all their off time at the Base's bar or the Req Center and all their friends are other military people and the military is their entire life but... no. Just... no.

I had a civilian wife who never once lived in a base, we always had a place out in town. I had civilian friends. When the uniform came off I was a civilian with a bad haircut. You know what almost every career military person's #1 goal is at the end of the day? Get the hell of the base.

Who are fighting in this hypothetical coup? Because we are you. How is coup even going to work in a voluntary force?

Trump doesn't a Praetorian Guard capable of pulling this off.
 
Last edited:
(directed to the topic in general, not to the post before mine)

I would not dismiss the difficulty large groups of lightly armed insurrectionists would cause. Look at Iraq--the insurrection there didn't have anything that could stand up to US forces in a toe-to-toe fight, and yet they were able to bleed us for most of a decade and cause no end of political strife at the same time.

It might be foolish to think they could overthrow the government--but contending would certainly not be trivial and could easily become a serious problem, the kind that could be the straw on a camel's back if facing other pressures.

I really don't enjoy admitting it because I usually find myself on the other side of such arguments -- but the US government's reluctance to be in that position gives the 2nd amendment some degree of relevance.
 
Last edited:
gnome said:
(directed to the topic in general, not to the post before mine)

I would not dismiss the difficulty large groups of lightly armed insurrectionists would cause. Look at Iraq--the insurrection there didn't have anything that could stand up to US forces in a toe-to-toe fight, and yet they were able to bleed us for most of a decade and cause no end of political strife at the same time.
Click to expand...


It's interesting to note the evolution of the insurgency in Iraq. At the beginning, they did try to stand up in toe-to-toe fights, and did get their asses handed to them. They quite quickly learned to move to less direct attacks, which is when things like IEDs became a problem.

If there is a civil war in the US, it's not going to be toe-to-toe fights, it's going to be sneaky attacks on soft targets, hit-and-run before the army shows up. Anywhere the army already is, will never be attacked.

It will be a lot like the "Bleeding Kansas" period prior to the first US Civil War. Small groups of civilians getting into fights, and when the real army shows up, everyone melts back into the landscape.
 
Horatius said:
It's interesting to note the evolution of the insurgency in Iraq. At the beginning, they did try to stand up in toe-to-toe fights, and did get their asses handed to them. They quite quickly learned to move to less direct attacks, which is when things like IEDs became a problem.

If there is a civil war in the US, it's not going to be toe-to-toe fights, it's going to be sneaky attacks on soft targets, hit-and-run before the army shows up. Anywhere the army already is, will never be attacked.

It will be a lot like the "Bleeding Kansas" period prior to the first US Civil War. Small groups of civilians getting into fights, and when the real army shows up, everyone melts back into the landscape.
Click to expand...

This is the scenario I mean whe I talk about a second civil war.
 
dudalb said:
This is the scenario I mean whe I talk about a second civil war.
Click to expand...

Among the Partisans in occupied Europe, it played out something like this...

A group of unarmed Partisans would ambush a lone German soldier, perhaps only armed with knives and clubs, and obtain his sidearm and maybe his rifle and some ammo. Rinse and repeat and soon you have an armed squad that can “move up the food chain”, attacking small groups of soldiers and arsenals and get automatic weapons and vehicles to continue the fight. Not without heavy losses, but these folks were desperate.

A few differences with today:

1) A “squad” of “militia” already has a head start, starting out armed with AR15’s and AK47’s and the like.

2) Modern technology will make “taking to the hills” and fighting guerrilla-style less more difficult, given infrared heat seeking technology and drones.

3) These “Proud Boys” and their ilk are not literally fighting for their lives.

Don’t see any of this happening, but we also shouldn’t assume the military will squash armed resistance easily. It will prevail, but not always easily.

As an aside, I’ve been dreading a “Kristallnacht” moment with real blood in the streets. I hope that Dec 6 isn’t getting touted and primed for such an event. National Guard troops with live ammo going against large groups of armed demonstrators could get very ugly very fast, or at least provide a “Kent State” scenario and make martyrs of the fallen. Again, unlikely, but the past is prologue and all that.
 
Last edited:
Thermal said:
That's not the theory. No one expects the govt to launch nukes on civilian populations.
Click to expand...
Why nukes. Better guns? Tanks? Aircraft? Ships? Drones? Again: any 2nd amendment-inspired "we will manage to put down tyrannical gov" is wankfantasy.

I will take aside that most of 2nd amendment loons will welcome tyrannical gov with open arms as long as it is correct type of tyrannical government.

So yeah, it is one big fat BS.

Thermal said:
The idea is that those teenage Marines will have second thoughts about what they are doing when they put their Uncle or neighbor in their sights.
Click to expand...
That works same regardless of uncle having rock or gun.
Unlike power fantasies of 2nd amendment folks, reality is that either military shoots at civilians, or they refuse to do it. And refusal will be on moral grounds, not because these civilians are armed with some peashooters.

Thermal said:
Secondarily, say this pretend coup actually happened. Who has a better odds of putting it down in any scenario: an unarmed guy or one with a rifle?
Click to expand...

One guy cannot put down any coup (that can be reasonably called coup) either way.
 
It is so easy to destroy infrastructure. Modern countries only work because they have transportation, communication, clean water and electricity. Power lines are particularly vulnerable -- easy to bring down and hard to repair. It would only take a few "patriots". A civil war could cause millions to starve in the cold and dark.

Beirut was once "The Paris Of The Middle East", with all the accoutrements of a modern society, and then came the war in 1958. It has never recovered.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
It is so easy to destroy infrastructure. Modern countries only work because they have transportation, communication, clean water and electricity. Power lines are particularly vulnerable -- easy to bring down and hard to repair. It would only take a few "patriots". A civil war could cause millions to starve in the cold and dark.

Beirut was once "The Paris Of The Middle East", with all the accoutrements of a modern society, and then came the war in 1958. It has never recovered.
Click to expand...

Power failures alone can turn people into savages. Our degree of civilization is at veneer level.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
It is so easy to destroy infrastructure. Modern countries only work because they have transportation, communication, clean water and electricity. Power lines are particularly vulnerable -- easy to bring down and hard to repair. It would only take a few "patriots". A civil war could cause millions to starve in the cold and dark.

Beirut was once "The Paris Of The Middle East", with all the accoutrements of a modern society, and then came the war in 1958. It has never recovered.
Click to expand...
And in the thriller novels and movies, the water plant and nuclear plant are always connected to the internet. :D
 
Tero said:
And in the thriller novels and movies, the water plant and nuclear plant are always connected to the internet. :D
Click to expand...

Who needs the Internet?

Just a small plane.

A Quebec man who targeted Hydro-Quebec power lines in an aerial attack that left tens of thousands without power in December 2014 was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison.
Click to expand...

The Crown had sought the maximum 10-year sentence for the attack on two power lines northwest of Montreal, described by prosecutors as the jugular and spinal column of the Hydro-Quebec network.
Click to expand...

https://globalnews.ca/news/4746801/hydro-quebec-attack-sentence/

One guy. Or a few sticks of dynamite.

Society used to work very well based on trust. The trust is gone. The crazies are here.
 
They changed the rules!
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/accurate-pollster-election-different-rule-changes

Even the supreme court said no changes should be made on election year because...what?
The constitution does not specify how states should run elections. If the legislature and governor appointed officials to run elections, well.

"each state chooses members of the Electoral College in a manner directed by each state's respective legislature, with the states granted electors equal to their combined representation in both houses of Congress."
 
I don't think the military would ever support a coup by Trump. But individual servicepeople might, and we might be disappointed at how many would, if Trump really tried that.

The rest of the government would just transition to the new administration. Neither the military nor militia could stop that - old administration IT accounts and cell phones stop working, new Administration IT and cell phones connect. Civilians in those agencies are then getting direction from the new administration. Unless coup plotters could really gain control of IT and communication systems which are mostly being operated by career staff working from home, they've really got no ability to stop the transition.

Militants could occupy federal buildings if they want, but those buildings are all empty anyway due to Covid. The Civil Service trends pretty liberal anyway, and is operating as a distributed workforce. Guns in the street isn't going to change that.

I do worry about the Bleeding Kansas type scenarios though. We could just go down a rabbit hole of sectarian violence with or without military involvement, with or without military deserters participating. That's what worries me.
 
dudalb said:
This is the scenario I mean whe I talk about a second civil war.
Click to expand...

I don't buy the idea of a civil war. There are no principles behind it. Or at least not principles that a large number of people are ready to fight for. There's a difference between the guy who votes for Trump and the guy who'll fight for Trump.
 
Horatius said:
It's interesting to note the evolution of the insurgency in Iraq. At the beginning, they did try to stand up in toe-to-toe fights, and did get their asses handed to them. They quite quickly learned to move to less direct attacks, which is when things like IEDs became a problem.

If there is a civil war in the US, it's not going to be toe-to-toe fights, it's going to be sneaky attacks on soft targets, hit-and-run before the army shows up. Anywhere the army already is, will never be attacked.

It will be a lot like the "Bleeding Kansas" period prior to the first US Civil War. Small groups of civilians getting into fights, and when the real army shows up, everyone melts back into the landscape.
Click to expand...

There's a word for that. It starts with a 'T', and ends, fittingly enough, with 'errorism'.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom