The move suggests Donald Trump is doubling down on his claimed crime emergency in the nation’s capital after the election.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized the National Guard to begin using boats, several dozen marked police cars, humvees and light medium tactical vehicles in the nation’s capital — an escalation of the troops’ presence that could further blur the line between their military and law enforcement role.
It’s not clear why the Trump administration is making the move now. The Oct. 29 memo obtained by POLITICO detailing the expansion doesn’t provide any further details beyond doubling down on Trump’s plan to use the National Guard to crack down on what he’s called a “crime emergency”in the nation’s capital.
The beefed-up presence, which will be in place through the end of the year, would see members of the National Guard driving vehicles typically used by U.S. troops on battlefields like Iraq and Afghanistan on city streets to support law enforcement officers making drug busts, though they are not allowed to pursue suspects or make arrests.
They don’t need to take over the military – they’re already in charge of it. A coup isn’t really 4D chess, either. It’s a well-tread, brute force tactic by fascists, including many of trump’s friends. Thankfully it’s been failing a lot lately, but these lunatics have, until January, nearly unfettered control of the biggest military in the world.
Trump already tried a coup once and got away with it, so he really has no reason not to try again to avoid a power shift that might result in accountability. And he doesn’t need to rely on an ad hoc smattering of fringe militias this time. He’s got the full weight of the US military.
I really hope this is alarmism and they’ll go out with a whimper, but their own history would suggest not.
Considering they almost let a violent revolution start back when they murdered alex pretti, I don’t think they’re going to do anything too crazy since they’re MORE unpopular than before.
They’d be 100% uniting us peasants against the Epstein class. You might not think enough people would join in, but once people started losing family members to a tyrannical government, public opinion changes rapidly.
You are giving them more credit than you should. Trump is stupid. Like BIGLY stupid. How many of these people are willing to follow him at this point just to be thrown under the bus.
Trump is a figurehead for the Heritage Foundation and a few other accelerationist dominionist groups who will remain in charge even if trump drops dead tomorrow.
Compare their list of names to the ones that show up most often in the Epstein files and think about how motivated they are right now.
e: Do you think Vance of all people will oppose them, who they handpicked for that job?