> and who knows what it will look like if we have some kind of civil war out of this.

I don't understand mentions of "civil war" in the public lately (there's even a Hollywood movie about it).

There is only one party controlling the armed forces. I also doubt that any high-ranking officers would take the troops they command out of the command structure and then even order them to attack the government and other troops.

Not to mention that the new administration did some cleanup among the ranks already.

The chances for enough, or any, troops breaking away from the command are very low, no?

So who is going to fight that "civil war"? It looks to me like the government has overwhelming power. At most I see some troops refuse orders to shoot at the American people, or at other troops.

Armed civilians with their puny little guns and little organization are right out as soon as any part of the military joins a fight, that's why I only mentioned the latter to begin with.

> Armed civilians with their puny little guns and little organization are right out as soon as any part of the military joins a fight, that's why I only mentioned the latter to begin with.

We have several recent real-world examples of that not working out for the military. Assuming like minded people wont self-organize is a bad starting point, and jets and tanks have a tough time doing things like enforcing curfews. That's also ignoring that such a scenario would involve portions of said military force joining the civilian resistance, including those in leadership positions.

Besides, I've always hated this argument, because why fight the military when they can just target the politicians directly.

> Armed civilians with their puny little guns and little organization are right out as soon as any part of the military joins a fight

In the 1940s, the DoD published a field manual on how folk with "puny little guns" - or no guns at all - can fight.

Well, I think you did a pretty good job of describing the resources that they are consolidating into that one party that controls the military. For now it's just the National Guard going into cities, but didn't they float the idea of sending Marines to LA? There's so much it's impossible to keep track of what's actually going on.

I've always been of the idea that 100 guys with guns gets wiped out with 1 bomb nowadays, so why do individuals arm themselves to the teeth and LARP in the woods? it is looking more like that's going to be a paramilitary arm, or "private consultants" to ICE and CBP. those resources aren't for nothing, and they certainly aren't for taking down the US military.

This is a WW2 figure who had a song written about him after he was martyred. It became the anthem of the Nazi party. I didn't ever hear about him in my many years in the US, until a few days ago on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel

Law enforcement and security aren’t really set up for scenarios where random members of the general public want to attack you.

If the president shreds the constitution, there would likely be many in the military opposed to it.

While they are actively replacing cabinet positions with loyal outsiders that have little-to-no experience within the organizations they now run (eg Patel, Hegseth), I think it’s reasonable to assume that there remains career leaders throughout that would put country before king.

You also need to look at loyalty within the rank and file of course.

When I talk to conservative friends about this scenario they generally laugh; of course the military would choose country over king. At least for now I think there remains enough institutional integrity that this is plausible.