‘I think the bigger problem are the people from within, we have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics,’ Republican candidate tells Fox’s Maria Bartiromo

“And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military,” he said.

“I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. Not even the people who have come in, who are destroying our country.”

It isn’t clear under what circumstances Trump would view it justifiable to call in US troops against his own countrymen.

But his comments mark a baseless attack and a particularly hollow one coming from someone whose supporters violently attacked the US Capitol in an attempt to stop him from being thrown out of office three years ago.


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  • Freefall@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Soldiers are not obligated to follow unlawful orders…the brass will say “no”.

    • fadingembers@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      41 minutes ago

      Unfortunately people as a whole tend to follow orders regardless of their political party or legality. It’s been studied and observed all throughout history

      • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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        15 minutes ago

        Its not as simple as that though, e.g. that electro shock experiment was rather shaky and subsiquent attempts to replicate it have all but falsified its results.

        What you have to do is cherry pick the small group of people that are willing to do awful things, you then get them to do those things in presence of the saner people who then feel guilty by association. After that you can use their lack of action to stop this awful thing as blackmail/guilttrip to get them to do some small awful thing of their own, and then repeat that process to get them to do increasingly awful things until everyone is just as bad as what was originally just a very small subset of that group. Importantly even though they’re doing awful things they still feel bad about it but they’re in too deep, this makes them even more effective than your original psychopaths because they know how they’re likely to be punished should your side loose which makes them fanatical in order to avoid punishment.

        Its a tried and tested process but not quite as simple as people just following orders.

    • Clbull@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      How much support is there for Trump in the military though?

      I’m worried about the possibility that this kind of rhetoric could lead to an attempted coup or civil war.

      • FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 hour ago

        Really depends. In general officers tend to be mixed bag while enlisted soldiers tend to lean Trump.

        But it also depends the branch. In my experience most Marines tend to support Trump while the Navy and Airforce is more mixed.

        I’m sure you can get some statistics if you look it up. But it’s pretty certain the military leans more conservative than the general population on average.

          • bitjunkie@lemmy.world
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            22 minutes ago

            It may not be slavery by the purest interpretation of the meaning of the word, but what we have is still essentially “do shitty work you hate or starve and die in the street”.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Just cause the big guy called Trump a fascist doesnt mean there arent plenty of supporters down the chain of command.