Prepare for the Shock Troops

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.thebulwark.com/prepare-for-the-shock-troops/


“When can we use the guns?” The question hung in the air just long enough for some in the crowd to begin cheering. “That’s not a joke,” the man added. ”How many elections are they gonna steal before we kill these people?”

The question, posed on October 25 during Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA event in Idaho, made it clear that this man, and others like him, are hoping for a signal.

I’ve met men like this before. I worked in the firearms industry as a sales executive for a long time and beginning during the Obama presidency, gun business leaders like me, who helped build the nation’s top gun companies, noticed this disturbing chatter from gun owners at firearms trade shows. Many in the industry dismissed these threats. I didn’t. And now we hear them from gun owners across the country who dream of deploying their arsenals to kill fellow citizens.

It’s tempting to wish these people away. It’s a big country and there will always be malcontents and criminals. If you wanted to see the glass as half full, you could say that Charlie Kirk denounced the call to violence. Though to be honest, Kirk’s disavowal didn’t inspire much confidence. He rejected the call to murder not because it was wrong but because it would “play into all their plans”—you can guess who “they” are here. And Kirk then qualified this by saying that “we must exhaust every single peaceful means possible”—which sure seems to leave open the question of what to do after all of the peaceful means have been exhausted.

*snip*

[Jim__]

1. ... if history has taught us anything, it's that you can kill anyone ... - Michael Corleone

[empedocles]

3. Knew the quote, but now new dimensions of the quote are added as time goes by.

[lapfog_1]

2. will some on the left start killing the militia assholes

before they kill more of us?

I'm pretty certain this is what "they" want...

If Kyle Rittenhouse had been shot and killed in Kenosha does ANYONE think the judge would be bending over backwards to give the "antifa" defendant every consideration during their trial?

Will a leftist protester drive their car into a crowd of Q-anon Trump cultists?

I guess we could stay home and vote... but the repukes are making voting harder and harder and rigging the congressional maps to ensure a majority in Congress (the Senate is already "rigged" by the mere fact that a couple of million idiots in Wyoming have the same number of Senators as 30 million Californians).

[NullTuples]

18. If the paramedic had shot Kyle, it would've been celebrated as stopping an active shooter

Rittenhouse had already shot someone.

[Bobstandard]

5. True! The shock troops are eager!

I’ve run in to way too many of these types over the last months. They do have arsenals. One guy I met at a range recently had 15 long guns he was planning to fire that day. He bragged that he’s got over 100 long guns and pistols in his home. He had a black flag sticker on his bumper.

On the local right wing radio guys call in too frequently for comfort saying things like, “the time’s gonna come when we’re going to have to round up all these Democrats and do away with them.’ The host says, “well, I can’t condoned violence, but I sympathize with you.” The rhetoric is getting more extreme.

I think we’re farther down the slippery slope than most people recognize. It scares the shit out of me.

[PatSeg]

6. Yes, that is horrifying

And it seems to be accelerating.

[Bluethroughu]

7. Let us remember when the Bundy's were in stand off with the Feds...

The group offered to sacrifice their OWN women and children.

Need I say more.

[Evolve Dammit]

14. They are ready. And the coded signal will come from the Don. When he gets indicted is my predict.

[AverageOldGuy]

21. True story

I'm an amateur radio operator. Moved into my newly-built retirement home 14 years ago. Few months later went to my first meeting of local ham radio club.

One lardass loudmouth was showing everyone his "liberal hunting license," guffawing about how he could now legally hunt liberals. I told him I was a liberal and asked when he planned to shoot me. The conversation went downhill from there, with him and his friends giving me a ration of shit. Eventually I told him, if he was going to shot me on the spot, he had best do it before I made it out to my truck and retrieved my pistol. He then sputtered a load of horseshit about he was only kidding, take a joke, yadda, yadda . . .

I left, have not joined the club in spite of continued invitations.

And, yes, I am a heavily-armed liberal and a retired Army infantry officer with two tours in Vietnam.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

23. Well played, sir, well played. And thank you for your service.

One of the things that irks me about these self-proclaimed "patriots" is that a large percentage of them haven't spent a single day in the operational military. They've never taken the oath to "protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Hannity, Carlson and TFG fall in that category.

It never ceases to amaze me how prescient the Founding Fathers were. To anticipate a day when its own citizens would be a major threat took incredible foresight.

While my own military service was 17 years as a navigator in the Military Airlift Command navigator flying trash and troops all over the world, and in SAC as part of the U.S. "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) policy, I deeply respect those who put their lives on the front line.

Enjoy today. Your story certainly made mine a little brighter.

[Wild blueberry]

8. Entire article worth reading

Thank you.

[KS Toronado]

9. There's a huge contingent of RWNJs in this country waiting for

Der orange Fuhrer to give them their marching orders to kill Democrats. I know one in my home town who I'm
fairly certain has already painted a target on my back.

[Elessar Zappa]

10. If the right wing nutjobs

think all liberals are weak and defenseless , they’ve got another thing coming. I and many other liberals own guns and know how to use them. Just because we’re not itching to kill doesn’t mean we’d back down against the fascists.

[murielm99]

11. Exactly.

A lot of liberals served in the military. They still respect this country and what it stands for.

[John Ludi]

24. I bought guns

specifically BECAUSE of these people.

The two things that are different in this country and at this time than in Germany pre-WW2 are the possibility of armed resistance and the internet as the backbone of pretty much everything. I suspect that if the Trumpalumps start Civil War 2.0 that there will be some serious surprises coming their way once people realize that the shit has finally hit the fan.

[Hortensis]

12. I appreciate The Bulwark these days for the evaluations of thoughtful

conservatives about what's happening among the authoritarian, trumpist, Christian, white power, nationalist, fascist, libertarian, ultrawealthy, nihilist, populist, etc. elements of the right.

Certainly normalization of "early stage" authoritarianism. Using terrorist tactics to drive people out of civic positions in order to infiltrate and take over local private and governmental institutions. They are planning for the day when people call 911 for help and discover they're already there -- come to watch and be seen watching. It's happened before, many places.

"Do you doubt that if Donald Trump gave the command, that man in Idaho would be part of an armed mob rushing out to kill?" Nope. These are the same kind of people who attacked and cheered attacks on people in the streets leading up to Nazi takeovers. Social scientists and psychologists have found that "ordinary people" who are also authoritarian followers with a leader can be turned into murderous mobs shockingly, unbelievably quickly.

Research indicates that a bed rock 20-25% of the adults in North America is highly vulnerable to a demagogue who would incite hatred of various minorities to gain power.

This description is not about those joining militant DVE groups, but of a normal type of "normal" people, INactive in calm times but now swelling in numbers and increasingly believing their time has finally come:

Authoritarian Aggression. When I say authoritarian followers are aggressive I don’t mean they stride into bars and start fights. First of all, high RWAs go to church enormously more often than they go to bars.

Secondly, they usually avoid anything approaching a fair fight. Instead they aggress when they believe right and might are on their side. “Right” for them means, more than anything else, that their hostility is (in their minds) endorsed by established authority, or supports such authority. “Might” means they have a huge physical advantage over their target, in weaponry say, or in numbers, as in a lynch mob.

It’s striking how often authoritarian aggression happens in dark and cowardly ways, in the dark, by cowards who later will do everything they possibly can to avoid responsibility for what they did. Women, children, and others unable to defend themselves are typical victims.

Even more striking, the attackers typically feel morally superior to the people they are assaulting in an unfair fight. We shall see research evidence in the next chapter that this self-righteousness plays a huge role in high RWAs’ hostility.

Believe it or not, researchers are not allowed to organize murderous mobs to study hostility. So we have to study authoritarian aggression in subtler ways. ...

https://theauthoritarians.org/options-for-getting-the-book/

[2naSalit]

13. And they are congregating...

In areas like where I live. I'm seeing more and more vehicles kitted out for battle.

[Evolve Dammit]

17. They truly want bloodshed. And a lot of it. I am concerned most liberal Americans are asleep after

the last 5 years. Cult 45 is energized toward violence. I saw this coming 5 years ago. A classic fascist movement led by a mob boss who speaks in coded language as Michael cohen told us. We were lucky on 1/6. Let's hope the military is not divided.

[Jon King]

15. Almost all is just hot air, the real threat is in the Repug legislatures.

Most of the ones that would bother to act have been nailed for 1-6 already. Most of the rest are just internet warriors who like to get together with the fellas and play soldiers.

Almost all of these guys have jobs and families and love watching football on the weekends. And they are bullies/cowards, they know despite the cops on their side other cops will just start blasting away when they see their guns. They have no interest if there is even a tiny chance of someone firing back at them.

The real coup is happening on election boards and state legislatures.

[Martin Eden]

16. They fantasize about using their 2A joysticks

And now, more than ever, we need to contend with the very real prospect of that fantasy becoming a reality.

[MrHmm]

19. God.

This is just awful. Reagan knew what he was doing when he did away with the fairness doctrine; lies sold as truth.

[gab13by13]

20. Want to know something scarier than shock troops?

Trump tried once to take over the military. He fired the Secretary of Defense because he wouldn't do his bidding.

Trump wants a Pinocet style takeover where everyone on the left is imprisoned or worse.

[moondust]

22. Sturmabteilung (SA)

~
Sturmabteilung (German: [ˈʃtʊʁmʔapˌtaɪlʊŋ] (About this soundlisten); SA; literally "Storm Detachment" ) was the Nazi Party's original paramilitary wing. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Roter Frontkämpferbund of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and intimidating Romani, trade unionists, and especially Jews.

The SA were colloquially called Brownshirts (Braunhemden) because of the colour of their uniform's shirts, similar to Benito Mussolini's blackshirts. The official uniform of the SA was the brown shirt with a brown tie.
~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung

Jews will not replace them.

[Carlitos Brigante]

25. Maybe Democrats should run on "Hey look over there! A mob of

violent, angry shit kickers is coming to your suburb to turn it into a cesspool of fanaticism and ignorance..... " Clean it up some. But fear works both ways.