If we assume that ICE/CBP are the only goons Trump will use into the future - I think they are being far beyond way too hasty. I think it’s insane.
I saw online posts that said ICE has 20,000 employees. I don’t know if that’s true and I don’t know how many employees CBP has. For the sake of simplicity - I’ll make a liberal estimate that ICE/CBP has 30,000 goons they can put on the street. That’s probably higher than reality but whatever.
Those goons can only do so much. I’m horrible at mental arithmetic so hopefully somebody will make a far better guess. But I’ll guess they at the same time they can subjugate 2 (3?) cites similar to Minneapolis. It has a population of 430,000 and I have no idea what the population density is. Trump simply doesn’t have the manpower.
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The problem is GOP SCOTUS. The justices could do all sorts of horrible and horrific stuff.
They could say Trump has the right to declare martial law anywhere at anytime simply by saying it’s an “official act”.
They could void Posse Comitatus and say Trump can use the military to maintain order. Trump could use stuff like attack helicopters to scare the shit out of people.
They could say Trump not governors has control over every state’s national guard and he also can send them to other states at will.
They could - I don’t know the term - federalize(?) the police so Trump could use them however he likes. In other words - Trump could take a cop-goon and send him 500 miles way into a whole other state.
They could say Trump has the power to make pretty much any goon with a gun in a federal uniform his tool.
They could define “maintaining order” as making it legal for any uniformed goon on an American street to use lethal force at will.
Etc. I’m sure there are more things but I only listed what I thought of off the top of my head.
At this point - I can’t do the mental arithmetic at all. There are way too many variables for me. Maybe all those goons could try to subjugate ~50 Minneapolis-sized cites? I have no idea. Also - I know people would fight back but whatever happens - I expect the dems to do what they have been doing. Absolutely nothing.
I assume the democratic party machine would laugh at me and sat those are nonsense hypotheticals that can’t happen. So they are in no rush at all to do anything. Maybe they actually hope for Trump’s “overreach” because they only care about votes. They are focused on “kitchen table issues” and the upcoming elections. And - as always - they want to appeal to “moderate” republicans.
There were approximately 800,000 members of the SS throughout WWII. This included commandos, tank units, civilian clerks, doctors, lawyers, rifle platoons, concentration camp guards, and so on out of a total German population of 65 million. By the end of the war, several hundred thousand of those 800,000 were killed. They still murdered 17 million people as part of the Holocaust and killed millions of Allied troops. There were only 52,000 SS when Hitler assumed total control of Germany in 1933.
Even if ICE has small numbers, they get enough support from other law enforcement and the military to continue doing what they’re doing. Trump will need to recruit massive numbers if he wants to create another Auschwitz and fight multiple countries carrying out multiple genocides. But to get the ball rolling? 30,000 may be all he needs given how much automation and computerization there is. ICE doesn’t have to have dozens people going through records looking for undesirables’ addresses. One person can just pull up census data and send an e-mail.
If we assume that ICE/CBP are the only goons Trump will use into the future - I think they are being far beyond way too hasty. I think it’s insane.
I saw online posts that said ICE has 20,000 employees. I don’t know if that’s true and I don’t know how many employees CBP has. For the sake of simplicity - I’ll make a liberal estimate that ICE/CBP has 30,000 goons they can put on the street. That’s probably higher than reality but whatever.
Those goons can only do so much. I’m horrible at mental arithmetic so hopefully somebody will make a far better guess. But I’ll guess they at the same time they can subjugate 2 (3?) cites similar to Minneapolis. It has a population of 430,000 and I have no idea what the population density is. Trump simply doesn’t have the manpower.
-–
The problem is GOP SCOTUS. The justices could do all sorts of horrible and horrific stuff.
They could say Trump has the right to declare martial law anywhere at anytime simply by saying it’s an “official act”.
They could void Posse Comitatus and say Trump can use the military to maintain order. Trump could use stuff like attack helicopters to scare the shit out of people.
They could say Trump not governors has control over every state’s national guard and he also can send them to other states at will.
They could - I don’t know the term - federalize(?) the police so Trump could use them however he likes. In other words - Trump could take a cop-goon and send him 500 miles way into a whole other state.
They could say Trump has the power to make pretty much any goon with a gun in a federal uniform his tool.
They could define “maintaining order” as making it legal for any uniformed goon on an American street to use lethal force at will.
Etc. I’m sure there are more things but I only listed what I thought of off the top of my head.
At this point - I can’t do the mental arithmetic at all. There are way too many variables for me. Maybe all those goons could try to subjugate ~50 Minneapolis-sized cites? I have no idea. Also - I know people would fight back but whatever happens - I expect the dems to do what they have been doing. Absolutely nothing.
I assume the democratic party machine would laugh at me and sat those are nonsense hypotheticals that can’t happen. So they are in no rush at all to do anything. Maybe they actually hope for Trump’s “overreach” because they only care about votes. They are focused on “kitchen table issues” and the upcoming elections. And - as always - they want to appeal to “moderate” republicans.
There were approximately 800,000 members of the SS throughout WWII. This included commandos, tank units, civilian clerks, doctors, lawyers, rifle platoons, concentration camp guards, and so on out of a total German population of 65 million. By the end of the war, several hundred thousand of those 800,000 were killed. They still murdered 17 million people as part of the Holocaust and killed millions of Allied troops. There were only 52,000 SS when Hitler assumed total control of Germany in 1933.
Even if ICE has small numbers, they get enough support from other law enforcement and the military to continue doing what they’re doing. Trump will need to recruit massive numbers if he wants to create another Auschwitz and fight multiple countries carrying out multiple genocides. But to get the ball rolling? 30,000 may be all he needs given how much automation and computerization there is. ICE doesn’t have to have dozens people going through records looking for undesirables’ addresses. One person can just pull up census data and send an e-mail.