created by caveatlector73 on 02/12/2024 at 01:41 UTC
335 upvotes, 20 top-level comments (showing 20)
Comment by caveatlector73 at 02/12/2024 at 02:01 UTC
71 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Summary Statement: In the United States the military is not considered the President's personal tool. Under very specific circumstance the president may use the military and it has been done before - most recently in 1992 because it is very rarely invoked.
The Constitution prohibits domestic use of the U.S. military unless the country is invaded or the president declares that an insurrection is occurring. The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act further restricts the American military from getting involved in law enforcement, unless Congress legislates it or the president invokes the Insurrection Act.
Americans have not had to face military threats to democracy in the past and the military has always been considered non-partisan.
The Framers of the Constitution shared authority over the military among elected officials to ensure no one person has unchecked power to direct the military[1], and that the actions of the military are beholden to the public it serves. They swear allegiance to the Constitution not a person. A politicized military would have trouble recruiting and maintaining the trust of the public and other countries.
The question then becomes when is it appropriate to invoke the Insurrection Act and who controls that power?
Comment by amiwitty at 02/12/2024 at 02:36 UTC
20 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Who is going to stop him from doing whatever he wants. The Republicans that know he is bad are scared of being targeted by him, the Democrats don't have enough power and they play by the unwritten "rules", and a lot of the American public is either brainwashed, stupid, evil, or apathetic. Hopefully I'm wrong but the America that we knew and grew up with is done. Don't look at the late 1930s Germany, look at the late 1920s early 1930s Germany. That's where we're at. I hope I'm wrong.
Comment by kateinoly at 02/12/2024 at 02:14 UTC
38 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Trump doesn't understand a lot of things, but he doesn't care.
Comment by MrTurkle at 02/12/2024 at 03:23 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
He’s already said he’d go after the generals who aren’t loyal. It’s only a matter of time until the top brass are all boot-lickers too.
Comment by Mediocre-Magazine-30 at 02/12/2024 at 04:00 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Why would he need to understand all that ... he plays a TV character 100% of the time. His administration is a dangerous TV show designed to hurt people and enrich his family.
The little people can debate these items
Comment by AMv8-1day at 02/12/2024 at 05:45 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
"What Trump doesn't understand about _______" could be volumes of volumes of an encyclopedia Britannica
Comment by Choice-of-SteinsGate at 02/12/2024 at 06:00 UTC*
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
On top of this, id just like to add how Trump thinks that each country belonging to NATO pays into a NATO fund.
Trump described NATO as if it was going bankrupt, saying, *"I went to NATO. And NATO was essentially going out of business 'cause people weren't paying and it was going down, down, down,"*
Trump is dangerously ignorant of how this works.
in 2014, NATO members agreed to move "toward" spending 2 percent of GDP on national defense by 2024.
The 2 percent is a benchmark that each member should spend on its own defense in order to be able to contribute to the joint defense of the alliance. However, the goal is voluntary, and there is no debt or "delinquency" involved.
Despite what Trump thinks, each country's spending doesn't go towards some NATO general fund, but towards their own defense.
Trump has called the U.S., *"the schmucks that are paying for the whole thing."* Still not understanding that the funding benchmark has to do with each individual country's own defense spending. We're not "paying for NATO." In fact, our military spending has decreased in recent years.
Trump has also repeatedly attacked the alliance, aligning himself with Putin on one of his most important goals—the weakening of NATO Trump has called NATO "obsolete," and has reportedly, on several.occasions, said that he wants to withdraw from NATO entirely.
Trump has called Putin's invasion of Ukraine "genius," and "savvy," and has continuously threatened to not honor our commitment to any NATO countries who are "delinquent." Encouraging Russia to do whatever it wants to allies who don't contribute enough...
Comment by Immediate_Lion8516 at 02/12/2024 at 05:59 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Give it time. He’ll find ppl who will follow orders and put them in charge.
Comment by Worlds_Worst_Angler at 02/12/2024 at 07:34 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
To be fair, he doesn’t understand much of anything.
Comment by Turkstache at 02/12/2024 at 09:55 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Understanding the military for appropriate use is *not the point.* It's not even the point to make the US stronger and more influential. Using it for himself is the point. He doesn't care what happens to our military capability or national security.
Headlines like that give everyone the false assumption that the Republican party's malice is, at worst, a skill issue.
Comment by louisa1925 at 02/12/2024 at 02:56 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
He understands enough to destroy the country for Putin.
Comment by blackmobius at 02/12/2024 at 04:01 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Two things make america powerful
The impact of hollywood and our movies that are distributed all across the planet. And our military that acts as the worlds police officer. These spread our soft influence on the worlds cultural direction, and the hard power of elite units backed by unfathomable millions more soldiers in every corner of the planet
And he hates and refuses to understand them both
Comment by [deleted] at 02/12/2024 at 01:54 UTC
0 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[removed]
Comment by ThisStrawberry212 at 02/12/2024 at 07:48 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You can't use the active duty military aganist citizens; unless it's to protect federal property. You can use the national guard. Trump can activate units and place them on active duty status. Then the issue becomes are national guard troops on active status active duty, or still guardsmen. The official answer has never been decided though. Trump ran into this issue when he wanted to deploy the army and national guard aganist the BLM riots.
As for his migrant deportation plan he'll activate the guard and have them support ICE. ICE has the authority to handle citizens.
I'm an army veteran who served under Trump. The majority of enlisted are full maga. It's really going to come down to the officers. The very officers tuberville blocked promotions for so Trump could place his own.
General Milley is the reason the military didn't deploy on Jan 6 because he couldn't be sure what would happen.
Comment by No_Top_381 at 02/12/2024 at 09:38 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The United States has never been much of a democracy. It's always leaned into oligarchy.
Comment by NlightenedSelfIntrst at 02/12/2024 at 11:38 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Trump doesn't understand <insert anything here>.
Comment by Seaweed-Basic at 02/12/2024 at 12:56 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This is the guy who looked directly at the sun, with unprotected eyes, during a solar eclipse. Safe to say he understands nothing.
Comment by Terrorscream at 02/12/2024 at 04:10 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
He's made it clear he has no intention of making America democratic or powerful, he's just establishing oligarchy based dictatorship.
Comment by kitster1977 at 02/12/2024 at 04:02 UTC
-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
There is zero need to use the U.S. military in direct law enforcement actions for deportation. You can easily use the military to transport deportees out of the country. Most military pilots have to fly a certain amount of hours each month to maintain currency. They often fly in circles. Just load up the cargo aircraft and have them fly the training missions to foreign countries with a few ICE agents on board. It kills 2 birds with one stone. Pilots get training/maintain currency in the aircraft and deportees get deported. It really cuts down on cost as it’s going to be in the military budget either way. As to using the military on the border, that’s a slam dunk. Just about every country in the world uses their military on the border and the U.S. has an extensive history of using the National Guard on the southern border. They don’t have to be used in law enforcement. They can totally do logistics and many other support functions that free up ICE agents to focus mainly on law enforcement activities.
Comment by MisterRogers1 at 02/12/2024 at 02:51 UTC
-2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
We won't have a military with the lack of recruits. Anything is better than where we are right now