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[hector13]

I like how Trump’s team are all “this is entirely unrelated” when his former campaign manager who was present at a meeting with foreign nationals to discuss his political opponent has decided to help the people investigating just that.

I guess he needs to keep up his facade with his base.

So, countdown to civil war?

[Dunamisdeos]

Countdown to "a bunch of people get really angry on the internet and swear they could totally win a civil war so they don't need to go outside and fight one you Cuckpublitardocrats" is probably more accurate.

[hector13]

Hey man, he’s got a pretty constant ~40% approval rate. That’s a pretty significant chunk of people who think the swamp is trying to overrun the Trumpster.

[JoshuaFH]

"Cuckpublitardocrats"

I think we have our new political party.

[Loud Whispers]

Hey man, he’s got a pretty constant ~40% approval rate. That’s a pretty significant chunk of people who think the swamp is trying to overrun the Trumpster.

Ah, the 55D outer orbit checkers brigade, for whom every action is the final move of a grand master plan

[Dunamisdeos]

Hey man, he’s got a pretty constant ~40% approval rate. That’s a pretty significant chunk of people who think the swamp is trying to overrun the Trumpster.

Ah, the 55D outer orbit checkers brigade, for whom every action is the final move of a grand master plan

If you make it up as you go along that is literally true for the duration of your plan.

[scriver]

henotheist.

I want this to be what it sounds like so bad

It just means that I worship a single deity, but recognize there are others. It's a classification like monotheist and polytheist.

the Hen God accepts to equals. All shall bow or be necked!

[Hanslanda]

Countdown to "a bunch of people get really angry on the internet and swear they could totally win a civil war so they don't need to go outside and fight one you Cuckpublitardocrats" is probably more accurate.

Yeah this. I get the strong sensation that the actual military wouldn't do any 'RISE UP FOR TRUMP' bullshit and would instead politely point out that voting is smarter than getting into a drone fight with an ar15, regardless of how tactical it is.

[Dunamisdeos]

I have multiple friends in the military, and more than half of them are not on board with Trump. I expect his approval rating is mirrored in the military.

[Frumple]

I have multiple friends in the military, and more than half of them are not on board with Trump. I expect his approval rating is mirrored in the military.

From the last I remember seeing much on it, his approval is decent among the army, fairly high among marines (almost certainly an artifact of mattis, with a non-zero chance of hard flip should something happen to him), and low-ish among air force and navy. Country wide approval isn't mirrored, per se, but it's not all that high, either.

[Loud Whispers]

I have multiple friends in the military, and more than half of them are not on board with Trump. I expect his approval rating is mirrored in the military.

From the last I remember seeing much on it, his approval is decent among the army, fairly high among marines (almost certainly an artifact of mattis, with a non-zero chance of hard flip should something happen to him), and low-ish among air force and navy. Country wide approval isn't mirrored, per se, but it's not all that high, either.

How much of that is loyalty to the President Trump versus loyalty to Trump the person? Sorta like how the Varangian Guard were loyal to whoever was Emperor, not to any Emperor in particular

[Greiger]

How much of that is loyalty to the President Trump versus loyalty to Trump the person? Sorta like how the Varangian Guard were loyal to whoever was Emperor, not to any Emperor in particular

That actually seems like a really good thought.  He is pretty much the entire armed forces' boss so it makes me wonder how many members of the armed forces may have answered "Oh yes sir, I love the man and he is a boon to the country" simply because their CO was issuing the survey?

Naturally I've never been in the military, so I'm not sure how this stuff works, but wouldn't being openly against the man qualify as insubordination?

[Loud Whispers]

How much of that is loyalty to the President Trump versus loyalty to Trump the person? Sorta like how the Varangian Guard were loyal to whoever was Emperor, not to any Emperor in particular

That actually seems like a really good thought.  He is pretty much the entire armed forces' boss so it makes me wonder how many members of the armed forces may have answered "Oh yes sir, I love the man and he is a boon to the country" simply because their CO was issuing the survey?

Naturally I've never been in the military, so I'm not sure how this stuff works, but wouldn't being openly against the man qualify as insubordination?

That the President can slash defence spending probably also helps persuade those working in defence not to be critical without good cause. But I mean more in the sense of army units (and especially elite units) having a tendency to immensely respect their heads of state regardless of who they are, as long as they are head of state, because their commissioned authority fundamentally derives from the head of state and they are formally trained to respect authority / the sovereign authority. So would the polls showing massive approval for Trump amongst armed forces indicate that they support the President, or specifically Trump the person - in other words, if a 5D US risk II electric boogaloo happened because Trump was impeached for example, would the US armed forces side with Trump, or with whomever was the subsequent President? If its the former, they're loyal to Trump - if it's the latter, they're loyal to the President. Making Mattis defence secretary likely helps too

[Kagus]

It's not insubordination if there's not an order that is being disobeyed. You're allowed, hell, expected to dislike your superiors, but you're also expected to follow orders whether you like them or not.

That's internal politics. However, the military is also extremely careful with public image, and part of that means displaying unity (partly why such a stink is made around people in uniform loudly voicing political opinions: It's breaking the "uniformity"). So even if you don't like the president, you are required to support him. There is definitely a lot of loyalty to the system going on, whether it's actually felt or just adopted because everyone else is doing it (also rather prevalent).


On top of that, a very hefty number of soldiers are recruited from low-income, low-education rural families who overlap considerably with the kind of people who hopped aboard the Trump train. So, essentially, there are multiple factors at play.

[WealthyRadish]

Historically, the soldiers themselves rarely mutiny unless one of two things happen:

1) Their pay goes into severe arrears / the state goes bankrupt, or living conditions for the specific soldiers in a location go beyond physical limits of what's tolerable
2) There are existing ethnic or religious divisions with active political conflict ongoing outside the military

Mutinies used to be extremely common in armies, the norm even, but modern states will usually spare no expense (or hold back on political purges) to prevent mutinies. How far up the officer hierarchy a mutiny goes and to what extent it is aligned with other political events could be used to distinguish them from other things like open rebellion or revolution, but these are essentially "bottom up" events.

If the unrest starts at the top with senior officers, it's a coup, not a rebellion. Whether a coup works or not depends on many things, but mostly it's the timing and the degree to which the senior officers are on board that matters. The body of the army in a successful coup won't have time to hear what's going on, let alone decide what they want to do, while ideally there also wouldn't be any loyal senior officers in a position to impede it long enough for word to get out.

Edit: Anyway, the gist is that if the US military were to oust Trump, it would almost definitely be a coup carried out by the senior officers and not have any connection to the "loyalty" of the army itself.