US Presidential Election 2020 Thread II - Judgement Day(s)

Irish Praetorian wrote: »

Tangental to this; in your experience as (iirc) an army officer, what proportion of the rank and file would support Trump or perhaps Trumpism more generally? Does it contrast much with the attitudes of the officer corps for that matter? My recollection on the matter is vague but I have memories of one navy officer telling me the armed forces in the US drew most of their manpower from either the inner cities or the rural areas with a tradition of service, does that still hold true? And I guess beneath all of this is the question, when push comes to shove, how many would cross the Rubicon with Trump or someone like him?

Difficult to give a figure. There are a fair few who support Trump and his policies, without necessarily supporting Trump as a person, but as a rule, the folks I run into are fairly overwhelmingly Republican. Statistically, I believe officers are more likely lean Democrat than enlisted, and I do know some enlisted who are definitely on the progressive end of the scale, but they are all in the overall minority.

That said, I have seen absolutely nothing from anyone to indicate that any of us want the military to get involved in taking sides as an organisation. We've over two centuries of, shall we say, militant neutrality on the matter starting with George Washington, that sort of tradition is hard to break.

Of course, what they -want- and what they're -ordered- are two separate things. The Eisenhower vs Arkansas incident in the 50s showed that soldiers will carry out instructions to the best of their ability from one side one day, and then from the other side the next day, pursuant to the lawful chain of command at the time. In that, they place trust in the senior leadership that they are being given lawful orders. I have seen nothing to indicate that the Joint Chiefs or Combatant Commanders (Technically, the Joint Chiefs are not actually in the chain of command) would be willing to partake in an unlawful destruction of the peaceful or smooth transfer of civilian power, the President is quite limited in what he can do with troops inside the US (Another advantage of the US being 50 independent States). A more interesting question is what a State governor could do, but even if the most irrational Red state governor in the country decided to order his soldiers to take action (As Governor Faubus did in 1957), what would they do? Invade Pennsylvania from Kentucky to take over the counting centers? There would be nothing for them to do in their own jurisdiction.

That leaves one, very large wildcard. The DC. National Guard, located, coincidentally enough, right where the transfer of power is located. And unlike any other Guard, it's both able to lawfully conduct operations in the city normally prohibited to the military and has President at the top of the chain of command. Which is a full battalion of military police, and a bunch of other folks like transportation, Air force security, etc. So, if Trump ordered the DC Guard to fortify the White House and turn it into a fortress, I presume they'd do it. Probably half-heartedly (eg I can't imagine they'd dig trenches in the Rose Garden), but they'll do it.
And then, at 12:01 on 20th January, someone would relay a message to them from the new commander in chief across town to stand down, and that would be the end of it.

Your Naval Officer friend is correct. It's been a note of some concern that military service is now considered to be almost a family affair, with a very large proportion of folks in the service with relatives who served. And they, in turn, tend to be from where their folks are/were serving, which tends to be in the rural areas since that's where many of the bases are. And, yes, there's a large cohort from the inner cities, as it's viewed as a way out which gives free job training and other benefits. Those folks tend to gravitate to the support roles. (Not many post-army civilian jobs for infantry, but helicopter mechanics are another matter entirely, for example).