The move suggests Donald Trump is doubling down on his claimed crime emergency in the nation’s capital after the election.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized the National Guard to begin using boats, several dozen marked police cars, humvees and light medium tactical vehicles in the nation’s capital — an escalation of the troops’ presence that could further blur the line between their military and law enforcement role.
It’s not clear why the Trump administration is making the move now. The Oct. 29 memo obtained by POLITICO detailing the expansion doesn’t provide any further details beyond doubling down on Trump’s plan to use the National Guard to crack down on what he’s called a “crime emergency”in the nation’s capital.
The beefed-up presence, which will be in place through the end of the year, would see members of the National Guard driving vehicles typically used by U.S. troops on battlefields like Iraq and Afghanistan on city streets to support law enforcement officers making drug busts, though they are not allowed to pursue suspects or make arrests.
To be honest, I’m a little worried that Republicans aren’t denying election results. This is their entire MO, they’e still kind of at the height of their power, and they are the most rampantly criminal administration in history and have done everything in their power to avoid accountability so far. Narcissists and dictators don’t just give up, they will do whatever they can to avoid accountability.
And they’re just taking this lying down? Being normal about it? I’m getting a little worried they have a plot behind the scenes to keep power. Whether it be not seating reps on the 3rd, or something even worse.
Please assuage some of my fears.
One of my guesses is that claims of cheating would result in investigations that might actually find cheating–their cheating. They just underestimated the margins they’d have to cheat by to win, but might have still left some evidence.
Another guess is they saw how baseless claims did more to hurt their position than to help last time (tbh I suspect they only made the claims to try to put their opponents in a corner where they couldn’t accuse them back the next time without looking like they are just doing the same thing to all the people only half paying attention). They might be looking for cases where such a claim might be plausible instead of just making noise and sacrificing some lawyers’ reputations.
Guess 3 is that winning the elections was just plan A but they are ok going with plan B, and increasing the national guard presence in Washington is a part of that. It might be prudent for his political opponents to not all be in DC at once, or try spending time with the troops there to form bonds and/or guage their sentiments.
Guess 4 is that they were surprised at the sheer amount of opposition that showed up to vote and might have lost confidence they can get away with pushing it too much right now, especially with how things are escalating in France and they can see that the usual big block of “if there’s any bad behaviour at all during a protest, that cancels out whatever position they have” is eroding.
I think it was too big to rig, plus Bibi just cried stolen election, it would be ridiculous to do the same, especially given how he’s lied about it before. Im a little nervous too though.
Please assuage some of my fears.
Fair enough. And a good point. To that I would only point out THE ENTIRE FUCKING COUNTRY WENT BLUE including, no shit this is not a drill Texas, Kansas, and South Carolina.
Okay, not Florida, or Louisiana, but even there it was really fucking close. With that kind of vote presence I don’t think they’ll be as interested in swallowing whatever batshit deranged treason the orange rapist has in his Roger Stone file.
I hope Democrats aren’t being lulled to sleep with how accepting Republicans have been so far. I know they’re aware they don’t really have wide public support anymore, but I don’t trust them at all. I’m not sure this is even an option, but I would want a contingent of state troopers to come with all of the Senator/House Rep elects to come with them on the 3rd. I would not for a second find it too hard to believe they could try to arrest them all. They will not just sleepwalk into life sentences
Florida is highly concentrated racist boomer soup. I tried.
Republicans hate Trump rn, I doubt they will do anything that matters.
I was really really surprised when Trump didn’t immediately call the election “stolen”. I figured that it might have been because he’s so narcissistic that he didn’t care because it wasn’t an election for him specifically.
But, with all the military mobilisation I’m thinking along the same lines as you: what’re they up to? Obviously a coup, but how and when?
They have til January 3rd
Yeah, but the tangerine buffoon can’t think ahead, plan, or even follow a plan for that matter. He’d have blabbed already, unless he’s been kept in the dark this time.
I’ve been feeling uncharacteristically optimistic the last few days. I just have a feeling things are turning around for the better and America will go back to normal.
The election results show Trump doesn’t have the political influence I thought he did and, now that they see he doesn’t have the political influence they thought he did, his own party may start turning on him
But there is still a part of me that fears this is too good to be true and it’s gonna come crashing down soon
Do you really think that the party that just spent $500 million on campaigns and lost would have a 4D chess plan to take over the military to install their fascist regime?
Marco Rubio just floated qutting, Jimmy Vance just threw Donald under the bus. DeSantis called this “an extinction level event”. They don’t have the pull to convince anyone that it would be beneficial to help Trump at this point.
100%. A good one? No. A plan? Yeah.
Hegseth, Trump, Vought, etc. are willing to do anything to stay out of prison. They didn’t fire more than half of military leadership/generals for nothing. There is a 0% chance they’re just gonna fade away, let themselves get impeached, investigated, etc without doing something. I don’t think it’s going to work, but when have they ever just accepted something bad happening to them?
They’ve now been reminded of their actual numbers, not what they thought they had in their echo chambers.
They have had friends. When the rats jump ship, they are going to need a scapegoat.
Also, I don’t mean this in a rude way, but looking for consolation from your fears on the internet it NOT a good idea. Especially Doomy. Oops, I mean Lemmy.
plan to take over the military
They don’t need to take over the military – they’re already in charge of it. A coup isn’t really 4D chess, either. It’s a well-tread, brute force tactic by fascists, including many of trump’s friends. Thankfully it’s been failing a lot lately, but these lunatics have, until January, nearly unfettered control of the biggest military in the world.
Trump already tried a coup once and got away with it, so he really has no reason not to try again to avoid a power shift that might result in accountability. And he doesn’t need to rely on an ad hoc smattering of fringe militias this time. He’s got the full weight of the US military.
I really hope this is alarmism and they’ll go out with a whimper, but their own history would suggest not.
You are giving them more credit than you should. Trump is stupid. Like BIGLY stupid. How many of these people are willing to follow him at this point just to be thrown under the bus.
Trump is a figurehead for the Heritage Foundation and a few other accelerationist dominionist groups who will remain in charge even if trump drops dead tomorrow.
Compare their list of names to the ones that show up most often in the Epstein files and think about how motivated they are right now.
e: Do you think Vance of all people will oppose them, who they handpicked for that job?
Yep, rampant, scared spending that increased the closer we got to the midterms, Trump apparently trying to hide evidence he’s a felon (???lol???) all the conservatives scrambling to save their own hides already…
I definitely expect them to try something. I just don’t think it was plan A-E, so it’s probably a last-minute Hail Mary plan F. Still could be something awful and dangerous, but these peoples’ plan A is almost always a clusterfuck, and the American people just showed that we are tired of their fascist shit and are done with them altogether, so they’ll have a massively uphill battle no matter what they do
Well, democrats may have won the election, but they haven’t been seated yet. If there were to be some fuckery around seating them, there would be a lot of protesting in DC, and a fascist regime would make sure they have their military power in place to quell the uprising.
My conspiracy theory on this is that a major escalation is coming with the Iran war. So major that they feel the need to beef up military defense capabilities in both maralago and DC.
It seems pretty clear to me that Trump feels one of the ultimate flexes of his power would be a nuclear strike, so it will probably be that.
My heart weeps for the Iranians, the Palestinians, all all the Arab peoples shackled under the weight of imperial conquest. As well, for the rest of us, because this Pandora’s box would change everything, forever.
My heart weeps for the Iranians,
Iranian citizens are being shackled just as much by their own government as by the impact of Trump’s illegal war. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and Iranians deserve liberation from both.
Mostly the ones working with the Mossad and CIA to further destabilize them.
Also the ones running the country torturing and murdering protestors—along with women as an entire social class—for deviating from traditional values.
Between the SAM missiles being placed at mar a largo and this, this all seems like they are getting prepared for an attack…what do they know and what are they planning
There has been multiple reports of a massive strike coming on/after the midterms. His fortification of Ped-o-Lago, reports to based to prepare for 90-days of independent sustainability, a lot of word trickling down for citizens around the world to have 3-to-10 days of supplies, and don’t forget Chris Murphy (who was briefed on the plan) stating it’s “insane”, “lead to devastating escalation and our commitment to the rule of law”.
the orange diddler is probably still reeling from getting his proverbial clock cleaned the other day, but either he sees the writing on the wall or otherwise thinks he’s still invincible…but I don’t have any doubt he wants to go out in a blaze of glory
Yep you saw all the same warning signs I saw…my hunch is he is being egged on by Miller and Hegseth to go out in a blaze of glory since they are all truly psychopaths.
Hegseth especially believes this is the final battle, death cult shit
That tracks…reminds me of the greta thunberg quote about andrew tate…small dick energy
Yep, and this had already been planned and set in motion in the weeks leading up to the mid-terms. Tankers from Russia have already been turned around, Hegseth knows he’s fucked because even repubs have turned on him filing for impeachment.
Ohh hadn’t heard about the tankers, wonder if they still paid the Russians. Yah hoping for stability and happier days ahead, but it certainly looks like it’ll get worse between now and January.
That would truly be a feat if Irán has weapons with that reach.
I just saw trump yesterday on TV saying he cleaned up D.C. That ppl would go see the monuments and their families would get calls they’d be killed. That all crime is almost not existent since he got there.
Same. I thought women were thanking him that they could “finally walk the streets again” or some horse shit like that
