Pentagon official confirms plan as House minority leader Jeffries says president is ‘playing’ with Americans’ lives

Planning is underway to send national guard troops to Chicago, an official at the Pentagon confirmed to ABC News on Sunday.

“We won’t speculate on further operations. The Department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel,” a Department of Defense official said, according to ABC.

Earlier on Sunday, Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader and New York Democratic congressman, said Donald Trump has “manufactured a crisis” to justify sending federalized national guard troops into Chicago next, over the heads of local leaders.

  • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    edit-2
    22 hours ago

    Of course, because Trump and the GoP are the entire crisis in this country right now. They are so openly evil and corrupt now that they have to use desperate theatrics to keep their minority base of wicked, debased, self-harming, homicidal imbeciles in line.

  • Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    22 hours ago

    What Trump is “manufacturing”, is a civil war. He has already taken steps to fortify his position in DC, and is now planning to invade several cities / States that he deems a potential threat to his rule.

    If any of his actions are met with resistance, he will simply invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law across the entire country, fully activating the US military in the process. At the end of the day, they can either go along with it willingly, or he will take what he wants by force. Checkmate, Libruls.

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      20 hours ago

      And once he declared Martial Law, he will suspend elections. Remember how excitedly he leaped on Zelensky’s mention of suspending elections in his country?

      The MAGA Nazis are spending a lot of time thinking about this. They don’t ever intend on leaving. It will take a LOT of violence to dislodge them.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      22 hours ago

      In a reasonable world.

      We diverged from that world sometime around 2013 - 2016.

  • quick_snail@feddit.nl
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 day ago

    If there’s so many States’ national guards surrounding the White House in DC right now, why havent the attacked Trump yet?

    Isn’t their job to protect Democracy?

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      20 hours ago

      It’s all of their jobs to protect us from all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC, and nobody is a bigger national security threat than Trump.

  • bassomitron@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    81
    ·
    2 days ago

    Why aren’t all blue controlled states viewing this as an act of war? The federal government is literally invading states against the states’ will. First LA, then DC, now Chicago? Where the fuck is the line drawn?

    • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      20 hours ago

      Everybody has their own red line. I have two.

      The first is a person very close to me, who is a member of multiple vulnerable demographics. If anything happens to them, it’s on. I’d become a very dangerous person.

      The second is elections. We have NEVER suspended elections in America, not even during the Civil War. If elections are suspended, America ceases to exist, and if that happens, then I have no obligation to pay taxes or follow ANY laws. It’s Robin Hood Economics, and I’m heading for the nice neighborhood.

    • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      62
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      Politicians waiting for the public to get riled up. Public waiting for the politicians to start something. Classic bystander effect at work.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 day ago

        Remember the Ok Corral scene in Tombstone, where they all freeze with their guns out, and wait for the other guys to make the first move?

        That’s where we are right now.

      • FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        27
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        2 days ago

        I notice a lot of people on lemmy shaming others for not doing anything while they themselves clearly aren’t doing anything either

        • BakerBagel@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 day ago

          I don’t control local police forces or national guards or even any militia groups. The best i can do it stockpile liquor bottles and Styrofoam

        • regedit@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          20 hours ago

          while they themselves clearly aren’t doing anything either

          We’re doing something. We’re pooping!

        • ToaLanjiao@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          11
          ·
          edit-2
          2 days ago

          Depends. Are they American to begin with? If not, the rest of us are just watching this particular shitstorm, if you don’t mind.

          • Rothe@piefed.social
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            ·
            1 day ago

            Yeah, as a non-American, having lived with being exposed all my life to the American propagated myth about Americans being the most freedom loving and individualistic people on Earth, it is a bit curious to see how quick and unopposed the implementation of dictatorship in the US is.

            • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              1 day ago

              The average person has not been personally impacted enough to do anything about it. Until they are, and a large enough number of people feel they’re on a path to losing everything, will they do something about it.

              You can’t get more selfishly individualistic than the current American response to fascism, but this is nothing new. They couldn’t even agree that everyone deserves healthcare.

          • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            2 days ago

            The weird thing is, is that the people criticizing the people who criticize those not doing anything are themselves not doing anything either. Not an American btw. It’s bystanders all the way down!

    • Donjuanme@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      21 hours ago

      What are the national guard going to do? What do you think they’re going to do? They’re there to provoke and instigate, they’ll lay around in public buildings and twiddle their thumbs and life will go on as normal.

      It’s questionably an invasion, but they aren’t going to actually do anything because that would require someone to give the orders to do something, and the GOP is spineless as shit when it comes to putting their names on things.

      They want to illicit a response, let them waste their time.

      • bassomitron@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        21 hours ago

        Ummm, how about it’s setting a super fucked up precedent? Even if they don’t do anything, it should absolutely not be something that’s tolerated and normalized to have armed military roaming our streets.

  • WanderWisley@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 day ago

    This was the plan all along. Keep making shit up to keep us scared and upset about it. While they take everything away from us.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 day ago

    Yes, that is indeed what narcissists do: permanently creating crisis to keep people on their toes and attention firmly tuned on themselves.

  • DaddleDew@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    46
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    You don’t say? Give the Democrats 6 more months and maybe they’ll finally have caught on to the fact that Trump is establishing a dictatorship. They might even start thinking about maybe saying something about it. Just in time for the part where they all get arrested and locked up, which means it will be too late.

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      22 hours ago

      Honestly if I were working to establish a dictatorship in the US I would keep them around, its always useful to have a fake opposition around in order to feign democracy and you couldn’t ask for a more oblivious and toothless opposition than the democrats.

    • BakerBagel@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 day ago

      You just need a couple more of them to reach across the aisle and find common ground with Republicans and then everything will turn out ok.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      22 hours ago

      I’m sure Cory Booker will stand in one spot for a very long time and Chuck Schumer is drafting a VERY stern letter as we speak.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      22 hours ago

      It ain’t happening. They already stopped caring. So have most people.

      We all knew it would go away, but it should serve as a pretty profound reminder that we don’t have rule of law anymore, and we have the exact same fucking situation that we declared independence as a nation from. The SAME thing.

      • qevlarr@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 hours ago

        I don’t think so, actually. This is Trump’s Benghazi. The coverup is worse than the crime. What is Trump hiding? We can hit him with his own conspiracy theory

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 hour ago

          We can hit him

          There’s several thousand things we “can” do and hit him with, but the problem is we we’re not doing those things. Or more specifically, we have not done of this broadly for so long that we’re now relying on the goddamn democrats to be our final bastion of defense against losing democracy entirely. We let too many angry young men become incels and let our moron neighbors retreat to their own online spaces unchallenged. It’s set-in now, it’s a stain. We will never undo it.

          No, seriously, they’re deploying military forces on political enemy cities, our time for making his base raise their brow and go “Hmnn! What is he UP TO!” is long over. They sidestepped the Epstein thing and just plowed right through, and most of the base moved on too. They have the judicial branch, they have house and senate, they do not care.

          We can keep talking about it when we talk to people already shaky in their support, but we’re moving into endgame territory, it’s going to take some huge, catastrophic event to bring this to a head, such as national guard soldiers and deaths on one or both sides, or some other bloodbath that changes American narratives. Right now in sites like Lemmy and Reddit most of the people are still not taking this seriously are chanting “nothing ever happens” as they sit there doing nothing. Gen Z broadly wants to check out and roleplay and play games right up until they can’t anymore.

          If you can get people rallied to get involved in social programs, local elections and city/county policy, it would be our best bet for saving the future, even if it takes generations now. But it’s gonna be shit for a long time because too many people who actually cared hid.

    • regedit@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      20 hours ago

      He slides into it as a distraction like tiny hotdog slides into the corn part of a corn dog, I assume. I actually don’t know how corn dogs are made.

  • xenomor@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 days ago

    I’ve got lots of thoughts on this. At the moment, I’d just like to say FUCK THE TROOPS. You follow these orders, you’re the problem.

  • 60d@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    18
    ·
    2 days ago

    Manufactures crisis=Manufactures consent

    Release the pedo files!

  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    2 days ago

    I remember when people said that we shouldn’t do anything drastic because Trump would use it as an excuse.

    Turns out he doesn’t need an excuse, he can just make shit up. Who knew? 🤷‍♀️

  • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    2 days ago

    This will not go the way they think it will.

    Putin and the HF is counting on civil unrest to occur. Depending on it. But they fail to realize this isn’t a North VS South thing.

    This is tyranny VS insurgency. Except the US is big. Extremely big. The population ~350m people.

    • Rothe@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 day ago

      Lots and lots of Americans are perfectly fine with tyranny, as long as they believe it is their tyranny being imposed. Also what does size have to do with anything?