Who decides if our 250th Anniversary is our last?

Speaking solely for myself, I suspect that a fractured nation is the most likely outcome of this long-simmering culture clash. That fact that this administration’s first attempts to subvert the rule of law and invalidate our constitution weren’t immediately crushed like a rodent under a tank’s treads proves that we’ve lost the plot as a nation. Therefore, it’s reasonable and prudent to expect the next attempts to subvert the rule of law and invalidate our constitution will be more deliberate, more decisive, and more effective.

That’s how I shocked one of my best mates last Thursday night. After grousing to me about how upset he was with all the latest limpid tap dancing towards Fascism Lite™ he tentatively asked me if I thought it was conceivable that the American military might really fire on American citizens. He was aghast when I told him “Absolutely, yes.” I stand by that prediction: this is no longer a matter of “if” or “when” but a crucial matter of “in which direction?”

Consider the first paragraph of Wikipedia’s entry on “Domestic military deployments by the second Trump administration”:

“During his second presidency, Donald Trump ordered deployments of National Guard troops to select U.S. cities in 2025 and certain deployments have continued into 2026. Trump has given multiple explanations for the deployments, saying they are officially part of crackdowns on protests, civil unrest, crime, homelessness, and illegal immigration. The actions targeted Democratic Party-led cities and sparked significant controversy, with critics labelling them as abuses of power and potential violations of laws like the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits military involvement in domestic law enforcement. The moves came amidst broader expansions of the military’s domestic use during the second Trump administration,[4] and Trump’s prior comments during his presidential campaign to use the military to end civil unrest and protests without consent from state governors and target ‘the enemy within’.”

The seal’s been broken, folks. The genie’s out of the bottle and he’s spoiling for another civil war. Our current government has violated so many norms and laws that those norms and laws might as well not exist. The powers-what-be have openly admitted that they intend to employ the U.S. military to violate our legal and civil rights through violence. This is not a “possibility” anymore … it’s a promise of horrors to come.

Our largely pointless legislators have been playing a game of “gay (constitutional) chicken” while the architects of our democracy’s dissolution have smirked their way to a 30-to-1 win record for their depraved agenda. The “supreme” in our Supreme Court no longer has any meaning, other than that serving up our nation to oligarchs on a platter now comes with sour cream. Remember that the big boss himself quipped "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law" back in February 2025. The last conventional line of resistance between the United States of America and the Incorporated States of America is the last organisation that still has the capability to decisively choose a side.

This isn’t an academic question. Our military will be the winning card in the nation’s last hand of existential poker. The question that horrifies everyone in the run up to the midterms is that when our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and coasties join the life-or-death fight for the fate or our nation, will they slaughter our countrymen in the streets to ensure America’s slide into authoritarianism or to prevent it? I’m not convinced any other contemporary issue really matters considering what’s at stake.

You’d think this would be a no-brainer; all American servicemembers swear the same oath. It begins “I, [full name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Yeah, there’s a part about the politicians and the government after that, but the bloody constitution comes first because it trumps all the other bits (ahem). Either you’re defending our core national values as a member of the uniformed services, or you’re being a treasonous, honourless, traitor to your oath and to the people you’ve sworn to protect. We assumed that we’d decisively settled this issue on 26th May 1865 after giving our last batch of smarmy, slave-owning, quislings a righteous kerb-stomping. Seems we were wrong.

Unfortunately, even our armed forces can’t be guaranteed to side with the nation and its laws since the administration has been purging our military of its most senior officers and trying to dominate the ones that remain. In the Cold War, we were terrified of Soviet spies subverting our junior enlisted; our military was never designed to counter ideological corruption from the CINC, down.

So … yeah. Come this Autumn, as the moderate candidates continue to get bulldozed by extremists while popular support for the regime continues to tank, I think it’s likely that an increasingly desperate administration will be so desperate to escape what they perceive as just retribution that they’ll do exactly what they said they’d do: deploy armed American soldiers into key cities to disrupt the election and intimidate voters. The military will obey orders and, thereby, be forced into a high-pressure environment where furious civilians from all political persuasions demand justice. It’s only going to take a single errant spark to ignite a firestorm … which will be exactly what the administration wants to justify suspending the election and declaring that there will be no changes to the status quo … ever again.

There will be no option left for a peaceful resolution of grievances after such an outrageous gambit. Only violence. This, I contend, is why every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, and coastie needs to search their soul now to decide where they personally stand … before they’re forced to choose a side in the heat of conflict.

I don’t want this to happen. I will do everything I can to prevent it from happening. Still, the actions and exhortations of any one civilian don’t mean squat in this ideological conflict. The worst-case scenario I’ve outlined here is a horrifyingly real possibility that will, if manifested, inflict untold suffering for the entire world. Morally, we cannot allow this to come to pass … but realistically, it isn’t up to us. I suspect it’ll come down to the integrity and professionalism of my fellow grunts at the tip of the spear. Worse comes to worst, I believe in my brothers- and sisters-in-arms.

Until we find out, please enjoy your bread and circuses on the White House lawn. Hope to see y’all again a year from now.