The author was trying to shield themselves from the despair of political doomscrolling by reading books, but was dismayed to learn of Trump’s plans to declare a national emergency and use the military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. The author speaks with anti-imperialist veteran friends who remind them that this is not the first time Trump has threatened to deploy the military against immigrants, and that actually carrying out such a plan would be a logistical and legal nightmare, requiring a massive expansion of the prison system at immense cost. The author argues that the only reasonable response for active-duty soldiers is to refuse to carry out these immoral orders, drawing parallels to the G.I. resistance during the Vietnam War. They advocate reviving networks of support like “G.I. coffeehouses” to provide a space for soldiers to organize and resist. Experts emphasize that troops have a moral responsibility to disobey illegal and immoral orders, and that immigrants are not the true enemy - it is the ruling class elite who are stealing from the working class. The author acknowledges the impulse to retreat into escapism, but argues that now is the time to collectively challenge these dangerous policies.
The whole mass deportation thing is blatantly absurd. There won’t be a mass deportation. There might be an attempt at a mass deportation, but there’s no way a bunch of guys who can’t figure out how to book a room at the Four Seasons are gonna figure out all the problems. There’s just not the resources or other places to detain, move, and deposit that many people. It’s the Wall Part II. It’s just gonna be the existing policy, but with press conferences claiming they did something.
To be a little fair, the military is very competent when it wants to be. If the military was onboard with the plan then the most competence the Trump team would need would be to give them the order. They’d start cordon and searches on the daily.
The military isn’t on board though.
Yeah the military will do the equivalent of shuffling around the same 4 papers making themselves look busy. They may be deployed somewhat but yet again its the military, ive met a couple E4 vets and those bastards could procrastinate and maliciously comply like no other I can only imagine what a general or major could do.
Most officers had to figure out malicious compliance early in their careers too. For the ones that didn’t, they have a Sergeant Major, who most assuredly spent time as an E-4.
You are right, and it’s not like there isn’t historical precedent showing them that deportation is just not a workable final solution for what they are trying to do. When they figure that out, they’ll probably make the same choice the other guys did.
Its actually really easy to deport a ton of people if you have guns and don’t care if you are accidentally deporting the wrong people