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That military apparatus is sworn to uphold the Constitution, not support the current president.
by zozbot234 2y ago
That military apparatus is sworn to uphold the Constitution, not support the current president.
- madeofpalk 2y agoThis only matters if people care enough to act appropriately when that is broken.
- krapp 2y agoI guess we'll see what matters when Trump orders the tanks to roll into Canada.
- erkt 2y ago[flagged]
- UltraSane 2y agoWith Trump you can never be sure. His is very very stupid.
- boredatoms 2y agoIm pretty sure Canada isn’t treating it like a joke
- the_gastropod 2y agoYes. For 10 years now, we’ve been hearing how hysterical the predictions about Trump’s actions are. And then he does them. And goal posts are moved, frogs are boiled, whatever analogy you prefer. Dude’s, right now, disappearing people against court orders to forced labor camps in other countries with no due process. He’s talking about taking over Canada and Greenland. What makes you think this is unrealistic? Why do you believe what you believe?
- kelnos 2y agoAt best -- at best -- the rhetoric about Canada and Greenland is just yet another distraction from all the other domestic crap he and Musk are pulling. At slightly less than best, he wants to scare other countries into making concessions favorable to the US (or at even less than best, favorable to Trump and his cronies). But yes, I would not be terribly surprised if Trump were to use boots on the ground -- or at least the threat of such -- to expand the US's territory in some way.
- soulofmischief 2y agoUnderestimating your enemy, or buying into all these media talking points about his will-they-won't-they energy and "epic trolling", will have disastrous effects. The most culpable person down the list after the apathetic are those who refuse to take tragedy and security threats seriously.
- lmm 2y ago[flagged]
- throwaway290 2y ago> > For 10 years now, we’ve been hearing how hysterical the predictions about Trump’s actions are. And then he does them. > We've been hearing hysterical things about every Republican candidate for at least 30 years. Nothing ever happens. I think you replied to something you made up to avoid replying to the actual thing. It was that in case of Trump apparently there is a history of ppl saying "surely it is joke and president would never do that" but then the president does exactly that. Not about hysterical things talked about US presidents. After many cases where he said "I'll do that" then people like you said "no that's insane he's not going to do that don't worry" and then he does it, a sane person should assume that maybe he talks without thinking but then he sticks to what he blurted. And those things include attacking allies bordering with USA So it can be up to USA military to uphold constitution or do what president says.
- 2y ago
- renewiltord 2y agoA curse of the youth is that they desire living in interesting times. They’ll work themselves up into a lather over it.
- beepbooptheory 2y agoA curse of the old is that they are doomed to see the world only as they have always known it, to always be "right," leaving them at best to die bitter; at worst, confused.
- thih9 2y agoThis wouldn’t happen today. Today there is talk about Canada becoming 51st state; there is relatively little opposition to that - on the contrary, the perception of Canada as a US ally drops in the US[1]. Four more years of this and I could see people similarly accepting tanks. And if you want to prevent this, the time to act is now. [1]: https://apnews.com/article/trump-poll-allies-enemies-friends-canada-uk-eu-tariffs-5fbb1aa714d60162919d131db40b222b https://apnews.com/article/trump-poll-allies-enemies-friends...
- fweimer 2y agoSurely no one currently in power wants Canadians to vote in U.S. Federal elections? So it has to be a setup like Puerto Rico (U.S. citizenship without representation in Washington) or even American Samoa (no U.S. citizenship). The 51st state thing does not make sense at all.
- zerd 2y ago90% oppose the idea. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/u-s-eh-who-are-the-canadians-who-would-support-a-51st-state-1.7472194 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/u-s-eh-who-are-the-canadians-...
- berdon 2y agoFrom what I have been told (specific to the US army): - Enlisted swear oaths to the constitution and President - Officers swear an oath to the constitution I’ve only been told this, I don’t claim to know.
- sorcerer-mar 2y agoThey swear that they will obey lawful orders from their commanders, all the way up to the President.
- vbezhenar 2y agoWho decides whether order is lawful or not?
- sorcerer-mar 2y agoA soldier comes to their own assessment then a court martial decides later on if they agree. Just like every other form of action: do what you believe is within bounds, then find out later if the courts agree
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Yoric 2y agoThere are military lawyers for this. I seem to recall that Trump fired them last month.
- vbezhenar 2y agoYou don't have lawyer in the trenches. You have an order, if you don't obey, you might be executed at place.
- sorcerer-mar 2y ago> You have an order, if you don't obey, you might be executed at place. Uhhhh... not in the US (or any western) military you won't.
- moogly 2y agoThe Constitution isn't worth much right now, and it's up for sale, no less.
- pedalpete 2y agoI wonder if Elon will acquire it with shares.
- riffraff 2y agoI mean, he did pay people directly for voting in the last round of primaries and he's doing it again for that judge election in Wisconsin, and all his money is Tesla shares so.. yes, he's already doing it.
- soraminazuki 2y agoEven though the world is turning upside down, the fact that this is possible without facing immediate arrest is still surprising. I don't think this is possible in any other democracy.
- gg82 2y agoHe didn't pay them to vote. He paid them for signing a pledge. He had no way to determine who they voted for.
- whats_a_quasar 2y agoThe commenter also included past presidents, which is silly. Once a president is a past president, he no longer controls that military apparatus.
- mingus88 2y agoThe U.S. will never allow any former president to get prosecuted because the precedent is too severe. By all reasonable accounts, GW Bush should have been prosecuted for war crimes. Trump should have been prosecuted the moment he left office for a spectrum of crimes. There is even a strong argument that Obama should have been prosecuted for drone strikes on citizen combatants. But power protects power, and the moment that seal is broken all hell breaks loose amongst the ruling class. How many people were held accountable for the 2008 crash? Zero. That would mean everyone else has to stop their criming too. Who knows, maybe Trump is stupid and petty enough to take revenge on his enemies. If he does, no doubt his entire administration is the next against the wall as soon as the winds change.
- nozzlegear 2y agoNixon certainly would've been prosecuted if he hadn't been pardoned. > There is even a strong argument that Obama should have been prosecuted for drone strikes on citizen combatants. I don't think this is very strong at all. There is zero evidence that Obama intentionally targeted civilians outside of al-Awlaki. Suggesting that he did, and that he should be prosecuted for war crimes, puts him in the same moral category as those who ordered actual torture on enemy combatants and launched wars on fabricated evidence. It's preposterous.
- int_19h 2y agoWar crimes are a very broad category, so no, it's not preposterous to claim that different people are both guilty of them even if the scope varies significantly.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- vkou 2y agoWhen there's no alternative nexus of power to rally around, they'll have no choice but to do whatever illegal thing they are told.
- coliveira 2y agoLet's be realistic: Congress has given away its power for decades. It is nowadays a Congress permanently divided and pretty much non-functional.
- nozzlegear 2y agoCongress has never had the power to command the military, that's not one of the powers granted to it in the constitution.
- ang_cire 2y agoCongress has the power to declare a war, which was supposed to prevent the Executive from taking any military action that was not purely defensive, without their approval. There was even a requirement about how long the President had to give an accounting to Congress about any action they did take. So yes, Congress was supposed to have the ability to "command" the military insomuch as they could choose whether the Executive could utilize them or not. Saying "no, you're not going to do that" is an authoritative command. Hamilton, Washington, and Madison all separately wrote that Section 8's War Declaration clause was intended to be a substantial limit on the President's power. Even the small, mini-conflicts in the 1800s required Congressional approval to initiate, it wasn't until the 1950s that the Executive branch destroyed that check on Executive power.
- nozzlegear 2y agoBy command I meant that Congress cannot tell the military "go arrest the president" or "go quell the unrest in that state." I agree that Congress has ceded too much power to the Executive in regard to declaration of war/military action in foreign countries after 9/11 though.
- kelnos 2y agoTrump may be Commander in Chief, but he cannot start a war without Congress' approval. Unfortunately, they've essentially given more or less blanket approval for various wars and war-like actions since before 9/11, and that approval keeps getting renewed every year.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kylestlb 2y agoFunny.
- ActorNightly 2y agoI really wish for this theory to be tested TBH. Martial law in US would be a great thing. US economy tanks, rest of the world like Europe is forced to pick up the slack, the world gets a refresh on what conservative "small government" brainrot does to countries.
- anon3459 2y agoGot some good examples from the past?
- ceejayoz 2y agoWWII?
- 4ndrewl 2y agoIt won't be like that. You'll slide further towards Putin/Erdogan state management and oligarchy. Hints of it already in how AP and The Atlantic are being treated, and the hints about what a future judicial system might look like.
- kelnos 2y agoThat only works until Trump finishes purging the upper ranks of the military, and then gets the Senate to promote Trump loyalists to take their place.
- lazyeye 2y agoWhat is a "loyalist"? What president has not put in place people that are loyal to him?
- kristjansson 2y agoA loyalist privileges their leader over their principles. A patriot is a leader that subordinates themselves to the principles shared with their followers.
- int_19h 2y agoIn the context of this conversation, a loyalist is obviously someone who will disregard the law and the constitution if Trump orders them to do so.
- rockskon 2y agoThat's a fantasy military leaders like to tell troops. Let's hope we won't how that plays out against against the reality of having bills to pay and family members to take care of after enough layers of leadership has been replaced.