[tracker1]

It's kind of a common state in US politics today... especially so with those on the political left when a Republican President is in office. That said, it's far amplified in recent years, but I recall similar sentiments as far back as when Reagan was President, and wouldn't be surprised with similar remarks before.

I've also heard some similar remarks towards Obama and Biden from the right, but not nearly as much as the left with Trump. The US political sphere is increasingly divided and the Overton window is fractured as well.

[SpicyLemonZest]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. The reason you hear it a lot with regards to Trump is that Trump has said, repeatedly and at great length, that he hates left-leaning Americans and refuses to represent them because they're enemies to be crushed. He announced over the weekend that he's considering a military invasion of Chicago.

[tptacek]

Pointlessly posting National Guard members outside of federal buildings is not in fact a "military invasion" of Chicago. It's stupid! But not much more than that.

[SpicyLemonZest]

It's not, but what's happening in DC is already more than that - they've begun operating mobile armed patrols of residential neighborhoods. See https://www.reuters.com/pictures/scenes-dc-federal-agents-na... for pictures; in particular, note the masked paramilitary goons casually strolling by a shop (https://www.reuters.com/resizer/v2/U7NNOHI5RRMCNE33UNDIWCP3H...).

Like, are they going to start shooting people? Probably not, probably it will go the same way as the LA invasion where the troops just kinda slink away after Trump gets distracted and Stephen Miller kidnaps all the immigrants he was looking for. But what happens if the Chicago PD tries to obstruct some operation or another on a day Trump got up on the wrong side of the bed?

[tptacek]

Without support from a law enforcement agency with actual arrest powers, marching around like toy soldiers is all they can do. A detachment of National Guardsmen "arrest" someone, take them to the ground, zip-tie their wrists. Now what? Every step after this involves cooperation with a prosecutor --- unless a federal crime is charged, a local prosecutor. They're doing this to freak you out, not because the National Guard can actually do any policing. Policing is as much about logistics and procedural infrastructure as it is about patrol.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Freaking people out is the goal of many military deployments! The point of a presence patrol isn’t typically that you want to shoot the locals; the ideal scenario is that they acknowledge you could shoot them if you wanted and submit to your authority. If you don’t want the Mississippi national guard taking over your city hall to declare Trump the winner of the 2028 election, you’d better start denying their authority to operate in your city now.

[sapphicsnail]

I live in LA and it's terrifying. There are soldiers in our streets without our consent. It isn't going to end with this. They're going to keep escalating. At this point, I dlthink half the country would he fine if Trump started bombing us.

[tptacek]

What exactly have the National Guard posted in LA done? In DC, they're literally picking up trash.

(That's not a good thing! It's an abuse of the Guard!)

[sapphicsnail]

The very fact that there are soldiers being stationed in our city without our consent by a hostile government is terrifying. I'm not scared of what they're doing, I'm scared of what they could do in the future and I'm scared that a large part of the country doesn't think this is a big deal or even seems to be cheering this on.

[tptacek]

I'm not cheering it on, but because I know that the point of the deployment is to freak me out, I refuse to take the bait. It's not like people carrying automatic weapons is a sight unknown to western Democracies; you see it all over Europe.

When they do something crazy, I'll be right there with you. But the President has the power to deploy the Guard to protect federal property, and while these deployments are abusive, they're not unlawful. Most of what people say about the Guard actually taking over policing is implausible. So I'm just going to call it out for the bad policy that it is and then not act like the collapse of society is imminent.

The fact that "a large part of the country" doesn't think this is a big deal should tell you something valuable about what the best next moves are.

[tracker1]

When you have opposing PoV, there's often no way to represent the interest of "both sides" ... Trump is choosing to represent the side with a Pro-US sentiment as opposed to those with Anti-US sentiment. To an extent this makes total sense.

I didn't specifically want to get into the reasoning as to why, beyond the simple fact that there is a large and increasing political divide. Trump is largely representing the majority in terms of what the population wants. The process isn't always what an individual or side may want specifically, but the results have been in line with the stated goals.

I don't have to like the guy to point this out. I usually vote LP myself. I reject far left and far right positions, but find that the far left is a much bigger group. And by "Far" I mean those whose positions are outside what most Americans would consider normative. Far right being around 5%, and doesn't include the majority of "MAGA". Far left being around 15% of the population, including those with cult-like adherence to leftist ideology and disruptive Marxist/Maoist tactics.