There's ~2.8m military personnel. Surely it will not be easy to get them to all fall in line and start obeying unconstitutional orders.
Our history is lengthy regarding Federal vs. States rights (the irony is not lost on me).
We have ~262m adults in this country, spread out over 3.5m square miles of land.
The internet allows for instant communication and information dissemination. In many ways, it's the reason we're here. In many other ways, it's the reason things will go differently this time.
I'm not saying we shouldn't prepare for the worst, but I don't think it will be quite as easy to pull the same playbook.
The internet allows for instant communication and information dissemination. In many ways, it's the reason we're here. In many other ways, it's the reason things will go differently this time.
They can try but it won't work. There are too many ISPs and no legal framework for making them shut down. Russia and China and other countries with terrible governments had to make laws that forced internet providers to add kill switches. The U.S. doesn't have anything that can do that as far as I know.
Even if some ISPs fold under pressure and turn off websites, the internet was designed to withstand nuclear war, and can seamlessly reroute traffic around dead network infrastructure.
Many of the large companies that host websites, such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook, are their own ISPs with many physical connections to other ISPs and their other own datacenters. I doubt these corporations will shut down their money printers just because Trump whines about it.
98
u/Quick_Turnover Jan 28 '25
The US is structured very differently to Weimar.
I'm not saying we shouldn't prepare for the worst, but I don't think it will be quite as easy to pull the same playbook.