After purging DHS, Trump bemoans military restrictions

[_MeDotOrg]

After the purge of DHS, today this:

The president is saddened by the fact that the military can’t be more “rough” with migrants coming to America.

After telling reporters in Texas on Wednesday that he wants more troops at the US-Mexico border, the president added, “our military, don’t forget, can’t act like a military would act. Because if they got a little rough, everybody would go crazy.”

The reason? “They have all these horrible laws that the Democrats won’t change [and] they will not change them,” the president said, without explaining what laws he means, or how his political opponents thwarted him.

It’s easy to dismiss this as another off-the-cuff, tough-guy Trump comment. But one can’t lose sight that this is the commander in chief — the head of all American forces — saying he kind of wishes the military could have more freedom to hurt men, women, and children.

That, to put it mildly, is horrifying.

So now, whatever staff remains at the White House will be scurrying around trying to figure out what laws to complain about. When Trump was nominated, he said "I alone can fix this." Here's part of the fix, folks. Gut the department in charge of Homeland Security, and then change the military rules of engagement for troops operating within the borders of the United States.

When Navy Seals and Green Berets held a joint exercise in 2015, Texas Governor Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Texas National Guard to observe the exercise, thereby thwarting a massive coup attempt by the Obama Administration. Fortunately our country survived, in no small part to the brave men and women of the Texas National Guard.

We do not have military exercises in the American Southwest. We have active duty military troops deployed at our Southern Border, and the President is complaining about the Posse Comitatus Act. Not a peep from Governor Abbott so far. I'm not holding my breath.

[_Jersey Girl]

The president is saddened by the fact that the military can’t be more “rough” with migrants coming to America.

After telling reporters in Texas on Wednesday that he wants more troops at the US-Mexico border, the president added, “our military, don’t forget, can’t act like a military would act. Because if they got a little rough, everybody would go crazy.”

How would a draft dodging coward know how the military would act?

[_EAllusion]

You can file this in the same bin of him encouraging border patrol to ignore judges' orders and suggesting the military fire on migrants if they show any signs of aggression.

It's pretty clear what he wants.

[_Kevin Graham]

This is the same idiot President who fear-mongered about Muslim prayer rugs being found in the Texas desert and talked about things CBP folks had no record of ever happening. Like women being duct taped in the back of vans. This is crap he saw on the movie Sicario and decided to just throw it out there as if it were reality. This is how damned evil our President is and it proves how damned stupid his supporters are for believing him.

[_Themis]

Trump's mindset is classic dictatorship mindset. The election of Trump helps me understand a little better how democracies are lost.

[_Some Schmo]

It's certainly not hard to understand why people regard Trump and his followers as traitors (although it's likely more accurate to say they've been enlisted a la an ISIS recruitment campaign). Desperate people do stupid things.

[_Gunnar]

Trump's mindset is classic dictatorship mindset. The election of Trump helps me understand a little better how democracies are lost.

Yes. I'm sure you remember him expressing open admiration for Kim Jong Un's dictatorial power and lamenting the fact that he could not enforce the same unquestioning and worshipful loyalty from the vast majority of the American electorate that Kim imposes by threat of imprisonment or death on his own people.

[_EAllusion]

What Trump helped me better grasp is how authoritarian leaders so consistently are described as dark Machiavellis pulling the strings of society when footage of them makes them appear to be total clowns. Start with Hitler and move on down the list, and more often than not the figure seems like a joke of a person. It's hard to reconcile that with the "clever villain" trope people like to think of them as, and I always wonder if cultural distance is creating the impression I have that the person is a walking joke.

Watching our own authoritarian clown really hits home for me how this process happens and why the latter image gets projected on the former kind of person.