@hex@kolektiva.social2025-10-02 12:28:47
Two things are worth noticing right now:
1. The military brass *did not* respond well to Trump and Hegseth.
2. The deployment to #Portland keeps getting delayed.
The military will never say "no" to the president (unless he's literally ordering them to open fire on unarmed civilians or something equally obviously illegal). But there are ways to not comply that don't necessarily involve refusal. Brass showing that they aren't aligned with Trump may weaken his billionaire backers, who might be realizing now that weak dictators who can't lead their militaries tend to get toppled... and their oligarch-backers tend to end up against walls.
If folks being ordered to send troops to #PDX don't want to comply, delaying until the there's an initial response from the lawsuit would be basically impossible to detect. The deployment to LA went far too fast, running into logistical challenges like troops sleeping on the floor. The delays we've already seen could indicate either a more careful approach or quiet resistance.
Trump will continue to escalate at every chance he gets. I would be surprised if PDX didn't give him a fight. I doubt the troops will become more interested in serving a guy who's stabbed them in the back and wasted their time at every opportunity.
It is still possible troops just won't deploy. Trump will make something up about how just the threat of an intervention was enough to make things safe or something like that. If we see that, it's 100% the military telling him to kick rocks because he's not competent enough to know when to back down.
Honestly, I think Trump wants revenge for the resistance PDX put up at the end of his last term. Any backing down from that is absolutely a big loss for him.
