Tell that to the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, the Viet Cong, Mao, and George Washington.
Just because the government has tanks does not mean "we have tanks and nukes, therefore we'll win" has proven true across military history.
Just because the government has tanks does not mean "we have tanks and nukes, therefore we'll win" has proven true across military history.
As Ukraine has demonstrated, a shaped charge and consumer drone is highly effective against even heavy mechanized armor. ERA doesn't work well for multiple hits, and drones and HMX/RDX are cheap.
Refineries and factories don't work without people and are exceedingly vulnerable to locals.
It is, therefore, not remotely relevant to your post starting this whole thread off saying that the consent of the governed is irrelevant and all you need is tanks.
They don't have the consent. And all they needed to get acquiescence was a bunch of poorly trained goons with masks, weapons, suv-s and official mandate. Not a single tank was needed yet.
Consent is irrelevant.
The only saving grace is that actual people with tanks (ie military) might at some point say 'nah'. Which I think they did in case of Greenland. Simply because it was too weird for them as opposed to Venezuela and Iran.
If the White House keeps up current threats against allies it may find nobody willing to lend them money, and therefore the government will be forced to inflate its way to balancing the books each year; if they follow through with kicking out the undocumented migrant workers (even if they improve their current behaviour and limit themselves to *only* undocumented migrant workers), they mess up US agriculture at the same time; there is also visible corruption and self-dealing within the government.
The question is the level, rather than the existence of these factors.
There's been another authoritarian in my lifetime who messed with farms by actually kicking out non-native people in the way Trump threatens, demonstrating even worse corruption, and that actually did try to fund the government with inflation rather than my hypothetical of "will be forced to": Mugabe. It didn't go well for Zimbabwe, and the US military can observe what happened there and decide if that's what they want to see in the US.
"We knew they didn't have weapons of mass destruction when we rolled up and didn't immediately get gassed"
People sign up for a variety of reasons; to keep their own safe is one of them, and that reason is incompatible with being the aggressor in a civil war.
Did you think you would ever so casually brush off the US Navy straight murdering people with 'sure, we're doing that but...'?
Edit: A large group of Federal agents just murdered a 37 something American on the street, on video. He had a permit to carry, and his largest crime appears to have been traffic tickets. Prior to shooting him to death they were video'd pistol whipping his face.
These people are just fine with murdering Americans.
As I'm not American, I was already in the set of people they'd be willing to kill when ordered.
Are *the military* more likely to kill other Americans today? I do not think so.
But as I'm not American, I'm more worried that the chance of a B83 heading my way has gone from "No way!" to "3%".
> A large group of Federal agents just murdered a 37 something American on the street, on video. He had a permit to carry
There was a kid a few years back, killed for a toy in an open-carry state.
My country of birth is not, contrary to what some claim, envious of the 2nd amendment; rather, it is glad to ban firearms. Even so, we see the hypocricy of killing those who exercise their rights.
The grocery store she shopped at literally had to setup special hours people like my mom could shop without being harassed and pushed to tears. She died knowing most of her community didn't care if she died if it inconvenienced them. 1 million Americans died and today they say 'COVID wasn't a thing'. 1 million Americans died and they say it's nothing.
Americans don't care who dies. They/we are fucking trash now. My grandfathers' generation were good people but whoever we are now, we are so lost. I grew up on Star Trek TNG American ideals and grew up Catholic and believing in the 'be kind' parts and thought my neighbors shared that but they don't.
That said, you've shifted the goalposts here: the one and only thing I was disagreeing about was the military. The military are the final arbiter of what happens, when the civilian government turns evil.
Seeing all the toadying and the way red hats are becoming the new brown shirts… I hope the ocean separating us is sufficient to keep me safe.
I cannot say, an am not saying, for certain that *the US military* are going to be not-evil, because unlike everyone else in the US federal government today the majority of the US armed forces are competent enough to keep quiet, and quiet makes it impossible to tell.
But what little gets out, from specifically the military? It suggests they take their oath of allegiance to the constitution seriously.
If the military is as bad as all your other non-military examples… well, even 25 years ago I was wondering how a new American civil war would play out, and if nukes would get involved.