Senior Democrats in US cities are preparing to defend their communities in the event of Donald Trump’s return to the White House after the former president has repeated threats that he would use presidential powers to seize control of major urban centers.

Trump has proposed deploying the military inside major cities largely run by Democrats to deal with protesters or to crush criminal gangs. He has threatened to dispatch large numbers of federal immigration agents to carry out mass deportations of undocumented people in so-called “sanctuary” cities.

He also aims to obliterate the progressive criminal justice policies of left-leaning prosecutors.

“In cities where there has been a complete breakdown of law and order … I will not hesitate to send in federal assets including the national guard until safety is restored,” Trump says in the campaign platform for his bid to become the 47th US president, Agenda47.

Trump provoked uproar earlier this week when he called for US armed forces to be deployed against his political rivals – “the enemy within” – on election day next month. But his plans to use national guard troops and military personnel as a means to attack those he sees as his opponents go much wider than that, spanning entire cities with Democratic leadership.

  • celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 hours ago

    Deploy the National Guard all you want. The Armed Forces of the United States of America swear an oath to the Constitution, not the President. It would be unprecedented for the NG to be deployed in such a manner to “democrat cities”, so this is purely hypothetical, but the Armed Forces as a general rule, do not fire on civilians or otherwise restrict the rights of civilians without just provocation or reason. Yes, Kent State is a famous example of when the National Guard opened fire and killed unarmed civilians exercising their 1st Amendment rights, and the aftermath of Kent State is why the National Guard will think long and hard about ever doing that again. It would make the George Floyd riots look like a picnic.

    • kboy101222
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      3 hours ago

      Man, you have way more confidence in the military not being full of MAGA idiots than I do.

      As someone constantly surrounded by people in the military - they’re almost all MAGA idiots, and the ones who aren’t are fence sitting “libertarians” who go right wing every time.

      • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        And this is why I am dumbfounded that the majority of the left is anti-2a…the people who are gun owners unfortunately vote red, because they’re single issue voters or Republicans. All the dems would need to do to completely destroy the GOP would be drop the anti2a rhetoric and they’d sweep every election until the GOP died and another party came to compete.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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          53 minutes ago

          It’s almost like having guns freely and widely accessible with few restrictions leads to a lot of death and injury, and the group with higher empathy has a problem with that.

        • TimmyDeanSausage @lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          I have never once heard an elected democratic politician (or serious candidate) speak against the 2nd amendment or even allude to repealing it. The only conversation I have personally seen/heard surrounding “gun control” is all about background checks/red flag laws which are supported by the majority of democratic and republican voters in every poll I’ve seen. All of the so-called “anti2a” rhetoric comes from the right in the form of fear mongering. That is to say (with no intention of being condescending), maybe stop listening to what right wing news outlets and politicians say Democrat’s are saying and just listen to what democrats are actually saying… You might be surprised at how sensible their ideas actually are on this issue.

  • MoonRaven@feddit.nl
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    4 hours ago

    I guess he’s seen the episode of deep space nine and thought it would be a good idea…

  • AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social
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    8 hours ago

    I feel like everyone forgot what happened last time.

    People in unmarked vans with no identifying patches or badges, just fatigues, grabbing people off the streets at night in the northwest.

    Even worse than the official fascists, the unofficial ones who were emboldened to act with impunity, riding into cities and inciting violence. Attempting to run Kamala’s bus off the road in 2020 in Texas.

    Dems run like they want to lose. Always conceding the arguments of the fascists. Touting the endorsement of monsters like Dick Cheney. The kinds of monsters who made the Republican party what it is today.

    If “senior democrats” actually gave a shit about avoiding conflict in the US, they’d actually be fighting for universal voting rights and eliminating FPTP voting.

    • leadore@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      You hit it on the head. The unmarked vans, unbadged troops, people “disappearing”–those were their practice drills and how they’ll do it. Uniformed troops will also be used in some situations (like the mass deportations), but the ones doing the daily dirty work against any demonstrators, specific political targets, etc. (“the enemy within”) will be those incognito forces. 😧

    • gravitas_deficiency
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      6 hours ago

      Oh, I fuckin remember.

      Honestly, if Trump somehow pulls out a win - and definitely, if he pulls out a win with some very clearly bullshit tactics involving GOP congressional leaders and the Tribunal of Six - I am completely serious when I say I expect an order of magnitude increase of political violence, up to and including a potential civil war. It’s that bad.

    • kandoh@reddthat.com
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      7 hours ago

      Allowing direct sales from car manufacturers and cracking down on unregulated supplements would knee cap fascism immediately

      • AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social
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        5 hours ago

        This feels like it attacks the problem at the margins. How is this approach more effective than direct dilution of power and flattening of hierarchies?

        • unwellsnail@sopuli.xyz
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          5 hours ago

          This approach would be a step along the way to that goal. A good chunk of fascist support comes from people selling supplements or used cars (there was a recent It Could Happen Here ep discussing this). Those people have money, power, and outsized influence on politics from local to federal. Disrupting their profits disrupts and dilutes their power. If your goal is to disrupt fascism there must be concrete steps to doing that, and this would be one.

  • borf@lemmynsfw.com
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    9 hours ago

    We’re thiiiiis close to the death of the “free world.” Fascism is a blink away.

    • Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      Seriously, and it’s his supporters that are the problem.

      Trump is obviously a buffoon, but it’s his mass of ignorant bigots, thieves, and exploiters that give him his power.

      Even if he loses, these people aren’t going anywhere. They are the real problem.

    • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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      8 hours ago

      It’s so sad too. I just visited a concentration camp and memorial in Germany with plaques highlighting the evils of facism and thought to myself wow, there it is, in my home country (US). And I hope we don’t continue to get worse.

      • Barbarian
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        6 hours ago

        I wish we’d have that level of openness here in Romania. There’s plenty of Romanians who think of the Holocaust as a specifically German thing and are wilfully ignorant about our complicity.

  • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
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    9 hours ago

    Do we have any idea of what military heads are thinking about that? Are they enthusiastic, mixed, or ready to oppose their commander in chief?

  • Ms. ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml
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    6 hours ago

    Sounds like he’s promoting firing up civil war tbh. How much of that could he get away with before people aggressively fight back? Or at least I hope we’d aggressively fight back