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If Trump wanted to stay in power why didn't he order the military to sieze the Congress and declare martial law? He thought a loosely organized band of civilian

by throwaway201103 6y ago

If Trump wanted to stay in power why didn't he order the military to sieze the Congress and declare martial law? He thought a loosely organized band of civilian protestors were going to actually keep him in office?

kadoban 6y ago
Because that very likely wouldn't have worked, and it'd more obviously and quickly have consequences for him when it failed. He thought he could at least intimidate his political enemies, and convince his allies and those on the fence to _at least_ make a bigger mess of the transfer of power.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Fundamentally, because he’s not very good at this. He’s lazy and impatient, if it can’t be done with a few tweets at 4AM, he can’t do it. For his entire presidency, Trump has really been good at chaos and bad at planning. He regularly failed to do things that were either within his powers or easily doable because he just didn’t follow the process right (DACA, muslim ban), or because he couldn’t work with others (wall, relief checks), or because he just didn’t have the patience to follow through (TikTok sale). When things require organization skill, he falls apart. His two biggest moves have been shit posting on twitter, and shit posting while undermining his own ongoing negotiations. He is incapable of actually doing the work, any work. Actually doing a coup via the military requires skill and planning. There are a lot of people in the chain who can say no, or drag their feet to delay illegal orders. A smarter autocrat would’ve laid the groundwork to purge the ranks of non-faithful, done his best to bribe rank and file members, or worked to create a plausible story that required military presence in the capital. Instead he vetoed their pay bill because he was angry at Twitter, after he pardoned war criminals and called them all suckers. He is simply not a strategic thinker at all. Whipping up his rabid fans so that they plan something on his behalf in whatever fetid swamps they’ve been banished to online? Now that he can do, because it only requires some tweets that he thinks of in the moment. That he was able to get so far with such amateurish work is a sign that the republic is very, very sick. Hopefully we can fix our underlying issues before a smarter autocrat has a go at it, because if that happens we’re probably doomed.

kadoban 6y ago

Because that very likely wouldn't have worked, and it'd more obviously and quickly have consequences for him when it failed. He thought he could at least intimidate his political enemies, and convince his allies and those on the fence to _at least_ make a bigger mess of the transfer of power.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Fundamentally, because he’s not very good at this. He’s lazy and impatient, if it can’t be done with a few tweets at 4AM, he can’t do it. For his entire presidency, Trump has really been good at chaos and bad at planning. He regularly failed to do things that were either within his powers or easily doable because he just didn’t follow the process right (DACA, muslim ban), or because he couldn’t work with others (wall, relief checks), or because he just didn’t have the patience to follow through (TikTok sale). When things require organization skill, he falls apart. His two biggest moves have been shit posting on twitter, and shit posting while undermining his own ongoing negotiations. He is incapable of actually doing the work, any work. Actually doing a coup via the military requires skill and planning. There are a lot of people in the chain who can say no, or drag their feet to delay illegal orders. A smarter autocrat would’ve laid the groundwork to purge the ranks of non-faithful, done his best to bribe rank and file members, or worked to create a plausible story that required military presence in the capital. Instead he vetoed their pay bill because he was angry at Twitter, after he pardoned war criminals and called them all suckers. He is simply not a strategic thinker at all. Whipping up his rabid fans so that they plan something on his behalf in whatever fetid swamps they’ve been banished to online? Now that he can do, because it only requires some tweets that he thinks of in the moment. That he was able to get so far with such amateurish work is a sign that the republic is very, very sick. Hopefully we can fix our underlying issues before a smarter autocrat has a go at it, because if that happens we’re probably doomed.