Samuel Smith🍞Nov 21, 2024
jwz

I'm being informed that we are still fucked.

Everyone's talking about Bobby Brainworms and fluoride, and the other monsters he's appointing just to troll us, but here's what's been keeping me up at night: the Fox Nazi war-crimes-enthusiast Secretary of Defense...
https://jwz.org/b/ykdU

Nov 20, 2024 at 7:48pmjwz.org
Show threadjwzNov 22, 2024
"A defense secretary with a tenuous grip on reality, who can’t differentiate foreign enemies from domestic political opponents, and who seems to exist in a state of permanent hysteria is a problem that the US has never had to survive. The main question I was looking to answer when I started reading Hegseth’s collected works was whether he would follow a Trump command to shoot peaceful protesters. After having read them, I don’t think he would even wait for the order." https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/11/pete-hegseth-books-trump/680744/
Pete Hegseth Might Be Trump’s Most Dangerous Nominee

Pete Hegseth considers himself to be at war with basically everybody to Trump’s left, and it is by no means clear that he means <em>war</em> metaphorically.

The Atlantic
Show threadJoeChipNov 22, 2024

@jwz
Would professional officers obey such orders coming out of the defense dept? Would the troops on the ground obey their officers?

Similar questions for National Guard units.

I don't know the answer but it seems to me to be a command-and-control nightmare.

Show threadMark T. TomczakNov 20, 2024
@jwz Yeah. There's a nonzero possibility that this scenario shakes out like Egypt, and that ends up being something on the "best-case scenarios" side of outcomes.
Show threadÁngela Stella MatutinaNov 20, 2024

@jwz

Military insurrection is a matter of when, not if.

Show threadJoe OrtizNov 20, 2024
@angelastella @jwz Yep, and it will get ugly regardless of outcome. There's truly no winners.
Show threadBill HookerNov 20, 2024
@jwz Boosted this without "liking" it because, well, yikes.
Show threadderptronNov 20, 2024

@jwz He said he was going to do exactly this on FoX News itself. I thought they were going to use SCOTUS and Congress to do it. I really had hope there for a second it wouldn't be the people voting for it.

This is exactly what we voted for. If he doesn't do this, then his campaign promises were lies. It looks like he's every intention of doing it.

Show threadcerementNov 20, 2024

@jwz

they’re gonna hold a welcome back party for Maria Butina, aren’t they?

Show threadmadopalNov 20, 2024
@jwz Shocking how much denial there is about how fucked we are. Blind luck is the only thing preventing blood in the streets.
Show threadkaffandoNov 20, 2024

@jwz

I've been saying for days, there will be a military coup. Which, in this case, I think will be a good thing.

#TrumpDictatorship

Show threadStreetDoggNov 21, 2024

@kaffando @jwz There was one in Turkey, too. And besides the fact that this szenario is *very* far from optimal in the first place, it also went very poorly over there.

This is going to get ugly, one way or another.

Show threadBat Master FreshNov 22, 2024
@StreetDogg @kaffando @jwz the military will do more than Garland did? I'll believe it when I see if
Show threaddraNgNonNov 20, 2024
@jwz yes. this. I too have been kept up at night thinking about this, or awake from sleep to full alert, thinking about this, and what am I going to do about it, what can I do about it.
Show threadGreg GreenNov 20, 2024
@jwz History shows us that it is dependent more on what low and mid level officers will do as well. If they don't obey the generals, then they are shouting into the void. Your point still stands though, ugly no matter what.
Show threadtripleman, a 🇹🇩 in đŸ‡©đŸ‡ȘNov 20, 2024
@jwz I dunno, I'm just a dumb Canadian but, if I were you, I'd be reminding every member of the military that I can see, every chance I got, that it wasn't the lefties that sent troops into every quagmire they could find after 9/11 and then dropped them like a hot potato when they came back from 𝒳 tours and needed serious help and support.
Show threadtvaughanNov 20, 2024
@jwz I think that the odds are high enough for it to be considered a certainty that if the Republicans lose in 2028 they won’t concede, somehow. So why should Kamala certify the results now? Democracy is dead. What no longer exists can’t be saved. We know bad shit is about to happen, but we need to wait until it does before we take action? If not, what actions would actually make a difference? How does any answer to that question start with “First, let them in through the front door”?
Show threadTerra FieldNov 20, 2024
@jwz I’ve been reading “On Tyranny” and it’s bizarre to watch people claim he doesn’t mean what he says when he keeps doing it and when we *know* that is actually how fascists rise to power, and somehow the “they wouldn’t do that” crowd still imagines political and societal norms matter. I feel like Cassandra.
Show threadcraigNov 21, 2024
@jwz The only thing that'll prevent this is if they're more greedy than power-mad; plunging the country into a civil war might prevent Money Number Go Up.
Show threadCiggy Bringer of SmokeNov 22, 2024

@jwz

The thing that strikes me so badly about this is that all these smooth brained deniers of legitimacy crisis would declare one only after the military allegiances laid bare point, and at that point, would be no more equipped to do anything about it, having spent 9 years pretending this was all just a regular walk through the political park.

"Maybe if we can pretend our way out of this, it will never come to a definitive head where we lost" is how any mainline Liberal politics is about this.

Show threadSean KleefeldNov 22, 2024
@jwz Yup. This is precisely what terrifies me, because I see some version of this happening regardless of the name of who Trump gets to install of Sect. of Defense