Trump is trying to incite an insurrection so he politically gets a free hand to do whatever he wants. If Congress and the courts are too slow or too cowardly to get anything done, he might get what he wants.

Just the possibility of an armed population resisting still gives them pause. But we're not at the level of the theoretical threat becoming realized.

If the people too eagerly exercise it they'll be used as justification for further oppression. Resistance is political. Unfortunately most of our politicians are spineless cowards on both sides.

But it is not at all a mystery about how things got to be the way they were in the 1930s. I've heard people I know advocate for atrocities.

i have read, in various places, that the last straw initiating foment of open revolution was when the kings militia began "taking liberties" with the wives and daughters of the colonists. piecemeal resistance, consolidated to a social movement, and the "shot heard around the world" was loosed.

Nowadays, the 2A is used simply to guarantee gun access to individuals, a movement underway since the early civil rights movement in the late '50s and largely confirmed with the Heller decision in '08. Unfortunately, that movement didn't bring any right to actually resist government overreach, which is why we haven't seen citizen militias form to violently resist ICE's own violence. They'd simply be killed and imprisoned and used to justify an increase in violence.

Personally, these events have really exposed the moral bankruptcy of the modern 2A movement. They want guns, and the attendant increase in shootings that accompany that, but have brought no real ability to resist government violence along with it. So we have the negative without the purported positive.

Obviously the next Congress and President will need to reform how the Guard works and how it can be deployed, otherwise we'll see this again.

Recall Trump's comments after several US members of Congress made a video along the lines of "you must refuse illegal orders." Trump called this "seditious behavior, punishable by DEATH!"[2]

[1] https://www.veterannews.org/veteran-news/army-eliminates-sev...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2025/11/20/nx-s1-5615190/trump-democrats...

10 U.S.C. S: 502

S: 502. Enlistment oath: who may administer

(a) Enlistment Oath.- Each person enlisting in an armed force shall take the following oath:

I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (So help me God)."

This kind of talk is needlessly optimistic. We’ve already seen how you all are, or there would’ve been more action from you all in stopping us from getting where we are now.

Give us a break from the military worship BS. Most veterans don’t have the gall to stand up against this sort of thing and we all know it.

"Too big" supposedly meaning orchestrating something that allows them to have the optics without the potential for fallout. This is really speculation though.

By what metric do you make this determination?

From a crime perspective, legal immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born citizens, and illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes still.

From an economic perspective, immigrants of all stripes tend to work harder than native-born citizens so they can establish themselves here. They contribute to society, pay their taxes, and in the case of illegal immigrants, aren't even afforded its protections and services.

The only metric by which I could see an argument that immigration has backfired is in political unrest, but that's mostly due to the fact that the right-wing media has been stoking panic over immigration for decades - anything to distract from how easily we're being fleeced by the wealthy and powerful.

  The New Colossus
  
  
  Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
  With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
  Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
  A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
  Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
  Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
  Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
  The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
  “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
  With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
  Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
  The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”