siderea: (Default)
[personal profile] siderea
2025 Jun 7 11:40 am: [profile] benjalvarez1 on Twitter:

WATCH THIS: https://x.com/BenjAlvarez1/status/1931375699786334704

Click through to see the video. You really, really should. Sound is irrelevant.

Text: "Tanks, fighting vehicles and howitzers arrive in Washington, D.C. ahead of next week's military parade. They departed from Texas on June 2." Two minutes and forty seconds.

Allegedly that train is a mile long and is transporting:

• 28 Abrams tanks (M1A2 main battle tank)
• 3 armored recovery vehicles (M88)
• 28 Bradleys (M2A3 infantry fighting vehicle)
• 5 Paladins (M109A7 self-propelled howitzer), and
• 28 Strykers (infantry carrier vehicle)

Source: 2025 Jun 6: @USAMilitaryChannel on YT [not official military channel]: "1-Mile Military Train -Texas to D.C. with Tanks, Armor, and More for Army's 250th Parade". I do not know if that source is reputable or if that inventory is accurate.

USA Today is reporting that "The military vehicles will be joined by 1,800 soldiers". (Source: 2025 Jun 6, USATODAY on YT: "Watch: Tanks, fighting vehicles head to DC for Trump's military parade", CW: face full of Trump, alt: screenshot).

I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I'm thinking that maybe the guy who attempted one coup already bringing a well-armed military force into our capitol city and, crucially, within artillery-range of the Pentagon, is just throwing himself a birthday party, but also maybe not.

ETA: For those of you confused by this, thinking, but doesn't he already control the military? You might want to watch this video about the rise of Xi Jinping.

Now, obviously, Trump would never play a long game like Xi did. But, 1) there are other ways to achieve the same end and 2) he doesn't have to, because his buddies, the Dominionists, did.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 09:48 am (UTC)
lauradi7dw: (abolish ICE)
From: [personal profile] lauradi7dw
It is hard not to slide along with the conspiracy theorists who look at the deliberate incitement in LA, including the administration takeover of the CA National Guard, and think that we are being set up for martial law, with the military already in place in our capitol Except Trump would go totally stir-crazy stuck in DC surrounded by the military, unable to spend millions of our bucks to get to one of his golf courses.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 10:57 am (UTC)
hudebnik: (Default)
From: [personal profile] hudebnik
You mean the guy who just sent 2000+ National Guard troops into L.A. over the objections of the Governor of California?

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 11:24 am (UTC)
moxie_man: (Default)
From: [personal profile] moxie_man
Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll turn on him.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 01:17 pm (UTC)
wispfox: (Default)
From: [personal profile] wispfox
Given the reaction to the protests in LA (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-07/paramount-home-depot)? Yeah, probably not just for his birthday.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 03:16 pm (UTC)
mellowtigger: Cartman of South Park (authority)
From: [personal profile] mellowtigger
Supposedly this started under Biden as maybe 300 people and a military band playing.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-trump-finally-got-the-military-parade-he-always-wanted/ar-AA1Gh2Ca

Then, of course, Trump happened.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 03:51 pm (UTC)
krinndnz: A "Just according to keikaku!" face (Default)
From: [personal profile] krinndnz
It's certainly suspect but the military is one of the constituencies that Trump has been alienating. Hegseth does not at all have the military's respect and the blatantly discriminatory firings of highly-qualified officers, as well as other dumb showboating (like the tinpot-dictator parade), have also reduced the Trump movement's credibility with the military. Many very bad outcomes are possible here, but I don't think "the military behaves like RTS-video-game units and goes wherever Trump clicks on a map and shoots at exactly who he tells them to shoot at" is the most likely of the bad outcomes.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-09 11:43 pm (UTC)
brainwane: spinner rack of books, small table, and cushy brown chair beside a window in my living room (chair)
From: [personal profile] brainwane

Researcher Risa Brooks posted an informative Bluesky thread that we might find also relevant to this question. She starts:

Seeing lots of discussion about whether the U.S. military will go along or push back against orders to confront mass protests.

Here’s my take on what other cases and prior research tell us about what might happen....

In academic parlance, military resistance to orders to repress protests is called “defection” (i.e., mil defects from the political leadership)....

and the thread includes:

in the U.S. the fact that the military has been strongly socialized to norms of civilian control in democracy plays a paradoxical role in protest response. Under normal times, it is essential the military follows civilian orders; indeed this is a prerequisite for democracy.

This ingrained commitment to civilian control though also supports a reflex to follow all orders. Only if illegal or very extreme might you see pushback. For this reason, we may see individual desertion in some cases, but defection at high levels in the U.S. military seems very unlikely.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 07:37 pm (UTC)
oracne: turtle (Default)
From: [personal profile] oracne
The "No Kings" protests are being anchored in Philly instead of DC - not sure if that will help or not. Scary.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 07:48 pm (UTC)
pseudomonas: per bend sinister azure and or a chameleon counterchanged (Default)
From: [personal profile] pseudomonas

serious question because I'm not keeping up with all the details of US politics: does he not have enough executive power (in practice even if not in theory) that he can do what he wants even without military coups?

I would have thought that from his point of view right now a military coup was something that he wanted to avoid having done against him.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 10:24 pm (UTC)
pseudomonas: per bend sinister azure and or a chameleon counterchanged (Default)
From: [personal profile] pseudomonas

I meant, can he not replace whoever he likes at the Pentagon with his friends even without sending troops in?

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-08 10:34 pm (UTC)
fabrisse: (Default)
From: [personal profile] fabrisse
I hope that there are still enough honorable service members that your fear is incorrect.

Also, I met General Abrams one day when I visited Dad at the Pentagon.

(no subject)

Date: 2025-06-10 03:36 am (UTC)
cellio: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cellio

Holy shit. That is an awful lot of firepower for a grudge-driven autocrat to have ready to hand.

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