You’re assuming that the military would willingly be deployed in the US against civilians. While that has happened with various state National Guard reserves, it is not legal when it comes to the other branches.
This is not to say they won’t given that plenty of flag officers have been replaced with MAGA loyalists, but doing so would destroy unit cohesion and would risk mutiny. More likely, so long as the US military remains professional (and not conscripts), they’re likely to respond via malicious compliance, much the way parade discipline was lacking during Trump’s birthday parade in 2025.
I’m not in the service, but I’ve heard from many veterans that an attempt to deploy the armed services against US civilians, or to engage in law enforcement action would cause far more problems than it would solve. This is why, when Trump has deployed the Marines on US soil, their duties have been limited to protecting federal buildings and not engaging with civilians, assisting ICE or controlling crowds.
I don’t think the organizational capacity exists to be a threat to law enforcement or local or state government.
If there were, I suspect attitudes of the military toward domestic deployment would change.
If, for example, militias succeeded at kidnapping plots against several state governors like the michigan plot against slotkin. Anything that could cridibly be labeled civil war would invite intervention by the military.
Basically there is a huge hill to climb to get to something that could be called a civil war that seems deeply implausible.
You’re assuming that the military would willingly be deployed in the US against civilians. While that has happened with various state National Guard reserves, it is not legal when it comes to the other branches.
This is not to say they won’t given that plenty of flag officers have been replaced with MAGA loyalists, but doing so would destroy unit cohesion and would risk mutiny. More likely, so long as the US military remains professional (and not conscripts), they’re likely to respond via malicious compliance, much the way parade discipline was lacking during Trump’s birthday parade in 2025.
I’m not in the service, but I’ve heard from many veterans that an attempt to deploy the armed services against US civilians, or to engage in law enforcement action would cause far more problems than it would solve. This is why, when Trump has deployed the Marines on US soil, their duties have been limited to protecting federal buildings and not engaging with civilians, assisting ICE or controlling crowds.
I don’t think the organizational capacity exists to be a threat to law enforcement or local or state government.
If there were, I suspect attitudes of the military toward domestic deployment would change.
If, for example, militias succeeded at kidnapping plots against several state governors like the michigan plot against slotkin. Anything that could cridibly be labeled civil war would invite intervention by the military.
Basically there is a huge hill to climb to get to something that could be called a civil war that seems deeply implausible.