this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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So, lets say we get to August or some summer month, and 4,000,000 people are protesting right out front the white house.

Do they send in the tanks? Do they kill 1,000,000 people? Would republican civilians see empathy for the dead americans who were democrats? Or would it unite the nation like 9/11 did, except this time against the government?

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[–] abbiistabbii@piefed.blahaj.zone 62 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Oh my sweet summer child, the United States has had several tiananmen Square style incidents. 

Look up the bonus army, Kent state, battle of Blair mountain...

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Ffs, the response to the LA Riots in '91 happened two years after Tienamen.

Nevermind the police response to Occupy Wall Street and BLM.

[–] HiTekRedNek@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Just to add: Ruby Ridge...

[–] abbiistabbii@piefed.blahaj.zone 19 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Ruby Ridge was a shootout between a family of paranoid religious whackjobs and the feds after they cocked up handing a guy a warrant, which eventually got taken by what today would be called "Magats" as a rallying cry.

  • Bonus army saw 17,000 vets, 26,000 supporters against the US Army and their tanks.
  • Kent State was a load of unarmed college kids against The Ohio National Guard.
  • Blair Mountain was 10,000 coal minters against The Police, Army, and a Pinkerton Company.

They call make Ruby Ridge look like a bar squabble.

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[–] stupor_fly@lemmy.sdf.org 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Without a doubt

heck we are the blueprint for a lot stuff like this in fact the Nazis studied us for protips on how to do Industrialized racism

The government has been fascist for a while and has killed its own people demonstrating several times. Too me some time to understand this myself but when I did, I've been talking about it for 20 years to people who'll listen. Needless, not many cared.

[–] Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 67 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Buddy, we've already bombed our own citizens multiple times. Battle of Blair Mountain for starts.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Would the United States, under normal circumstances, in the era of cellphones and cameras?

No.

Would Trump?

I don't think theres a single thing that Trump wouldnt do, he is such a infantile, reactionary, egomaniacable manbaby that I can see him doing literally anything, if it makes him feel powerful or if he thinks it'd give him some kind of edge/opportunity.

[–] Objection@lemmy.ml 258 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (80 children)

In 1970, the National Guard opened fire on a crowd of peaceful, unarmed students, killing four and wounding nine more. A Gallup poll conducted a week after the shooting found that 58% of Americans blamed the students for the massacre, with only 11% blaming the guardsmen. Many students who were present at the massacre were shunned by their own families, some were even disowned, and some were told that even more students should have been killed to teach them a lesson.

The students, for their part, couldn't even comprehend what was happening at first. Many of them thought the soldiers' weapons were loaded with blanks, that they were just trying to intimidate them. After the massacre, many of the students wanted to reassemble and continue peacefully demonstrating, in defiance of the guard. One of the professors convinced them to disperse, by shouting at them that all of them would be killed.

How was it possible for the public to see it that way? Because of how the media spun it. Even before the massacre, they were saying that the protests were full of "outside agitators" and claiming that they had been doing things like lacing the water supply with LSD. Of course, it eventually "came out" that these claims were complete bullshit based on nothing. So, once the moment had passed, they quietly printed retractions.

All that shit still happens today. It happens every single time a cop murders someone, whether it's Renee Good or George Floyd. The right wingers immediately start digging for any possible way to spin it and if they can't then they simply lie, and if the lie falls apart it doesn't matter, by that point people will have forgotten and moved on.

Yes they will kill you. They'll put people down like dogs and worry about how to justify it later. People want to believe the world is just, and that often means blaming the victim. They'll do it and they'll get away with it too.

Buy a gun.

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[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 days ago

The false flag, the event, the whatever you want to call it is on the way.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Imagine a scenario where an American government deployed armed soldiers into the center of a city to suppress a civilian revolt against the government.

A thing that has never happened before.

[–] mechoman444@lemmy.world 30 points 3 days ago (4 children)

We're rounding people up into interment camps. We're way past tank man.

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[–] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

This is the endgame Moscow wants: Balkanization and destabilization.

America failed itself, and Putin loves to add more gasoline to the fire. Either that country must save itself, or the rest of the world experience the unimaginable once the collapse is completed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

[–] BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

All the things that were said the USSR would do, we did unironically.

[–] fort_burp@feddit.nl 13 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

You guys are gonna blame leftists and/or Putin all the way to prison, aren't you? What's happening now is purely American, baby, and non-whites have been subjected to it for hundreds of years.

Sarcasm aside, you really don't need to look much further than American literacy rates and money in politics to see how we got here. Bonus points if you look into FPTP and gerrymandering. Of course it's much easier to be intellectually lazy and just say "this is all Putin's fault. Just wait till the miderms".

edit: geopolitics- yea, the US did this to itself (but a few people made a lot of money!!).

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[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 133 points 4 days ago (15 children)

Everybody keeps expecting civil war when what we're likely going to get is akin to "the troubles" of Northern Ireland. Prolonged, indefinite, bloody, insurgency. Bombings. Assassinations. More heavyhanded fascist paramilitary actions. Blood and chaos.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 38 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I agree. To have civil war you need multiple opposing armed forces of somewhat similar military strength. I don't really see that happening because of the purges of military leadership but an insurgency is very possible.

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[–] freeman@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Is the issue tanks ? Because the National Guard has killed people during Vietnam.

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

Right?

So many people are ignorant of history. I had someone in another thread screaming at me how this is all because of 2001. As if this stuff didn't happen before then.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 70 points 4 days ago (3 children)

America bombed its own city 40’ish years ago, and the entire country just moved on without a care. And about 60 years before that, almost forty city blocks were razed to the ground because the inhabitants were black.

Yes, they 100% could risk it. America is an extremely propagandized country, with patriotism on the right reaching jingoistic levels.

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[–] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 34 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Fun (?) Fact: Trump is actually a fan of the massacre:

Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength," he said.

"That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak... as being spit on by the rest of the world."

[–] 1D10@lemmy.world 72 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

"Would republican civilians see empathy for the dead americans who were democrats?"

You mean a couple hundred paid agitators that were bussed up from asylums in south America?

Because that's the story your average republican voters would believe. I know it's a bit hyperbolic but some of the shit I've heard them say about Mrs Good, and in general about the current protests leads me to feel that there is no limit to the lies an average republican voter is willing to suck down.

All that said I do not believe the military would follow those orders, but I'm not sure they would interfere if the DOJ started killing protesters in front of them.

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[–] kugel7c@feddit.org 12 points 3 days ago

Well they certainly could go much much worse. The regime and their base are so far from anything being based in reality I don't think anyone can truly be certain where this will go.

And you can just read about early ish days fascism in Germany and see how that meshes with this Regime and it's historical context. In no particular order :

  • Legislature ineffective and captured/ aligned
  • Judiciary captured /placed
  • Executive controlled (by proxy)
  • Intimidation / Terror Squad
  • Industry leaders largely aligned
  • Populous tired and under economical hardship
  • Extreme militarization
  • Strong and largely aligned surveillance system
  • Scapegoating / internal Enemy phantasms
  • History of ineffective Governance / Corruption
  • Generally unrepresentative and unstable Political System
  • Moderate / Ineffective International push-back
  • Unpredictable and Hostile foreign Policy

There are also lines that haven't been crossed yet but there are not a lot before we get to the really Bad ones. So yes Large scale incarceration and killing against internal resistance, or simply against the 'racialized other' are maybe already the next steps if MAGA(and the reaction to it) keeps on this trek.

There could be some kind of thing to fan the flames and lead into the big Bads including probably some external War as well.

Or there could be circumstances that stop this insanity before we get there. But holy hell Americans are way to chill about all of this currently and MAGA certainly won't stop until they are made to stumble and fall. Could be self inflicted of course but if the pressure is higher the chance of a fumble goes way up. So every resistance is worth the attempt at this point, and if the ship can still be pulled around there have to be real consequences otherwise it's just gonna be this again on a few decade cycle. I mean this shit is already worrying over here and in Germany well we seem to rhyme politically with the US of ten or so years ago so ....

For me this certainly is Fascist and we all should know how that goes if it truly gets to go.

[–] Wilco@lemmy.zip 10 points 3 days ago

MAGA will justify anything as "they shouldn't have been there". Even when something happens to them.

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