Blue states need to cease operation of their national guard units. Transfer all personnel to the state guards. The national guard units can be activated by the president; the state guards can't.
this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2025
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I will note that there is a huge financial incentive to not do that. Instead, they're challenging the federal deployments in court, with some success
Well I'm sorry we had to democracy die. Doing otherwise would have been too expensive.
Actually launching a civil war is really really bad. I expect to see it done only after everything else fails
Yeah, better to just let the armed goons do whatever they want.
Where did you get this odd civil war idea?
What exactly do you call a situation where state militias are using force to prevent armed federal employees dressed in military-style uniforms from attacking the people?
That's not what I suggested at all. I specifically suggested disbanding the national guard units all together and just moving them to the state guard units. You could even let them keep their own command structure. Just basically shuffling state-level personnel around so that the president can't take control of it.
Anything but civil.
First of all, the method would vary depending on each state constitution: by legislature or amendment. By my read, Oregon would be by legislature and Illinois by constitutional amendment.
From Illinois' constitution:
The Governor is commander-in-chief of the organized militia, except when they are in the service of the United States. He may call them out to enforce the laws, suppress insurrection or repel invasion.
If a state tried it, it would immediately be challenged in the courts. National Guard units are both federal and state entities, meaning there are federal statutes around National Guard units.
States also get training, equipment funding, and operational support for their National Guard units from the federal government. If they reorganized them into a state guard, the equipment that was purchased with grants would have to remain with their National Guard. So even if it got through the state and federal challenges, they'd need to buy new equipment too. Guess who's suddenly unwilling to sell them equipment?
National Guard units also hypothetically have easier access to disaster funds. Although that doesn't really matter under Trump, it may matter in the future.
The other side of the coin is the incentive to the Guardsmen themselves. They have education and retirement benefits. If they were reorganized, the state would probably have to make up the difference, if they could even legally do that.
Bottom line is attempting to reorganize into state militias is a multi-year effort that will be both extremely expensive and likely to fail due to judicial review.
Illinois already has a state guard in its constitution that would be able to be activated by the governor.
https://www.ilga.gov/Legislation/ILCS/Articles?ActID=317&ChapterID=5
Now, most of the other things you discussed would be major hurdles. It also would be seen as an escalation that Illinois was planning for a clash with National Troops.
It probably could be done under the pretense that the state guard needs more capacity to handle state emergencies while it's national guard troops have been federalized.
What's been interesting is that the "mission" the Federal Government has been tasking these units with are designed to pass the smell test. "Protect federal buildings and federal agents." It's a guise that makes the individuals objection to their mission orders harder to be considered illegal. It's not "arrest protestors" or "detain illegals."
Wouldn't it be amazing if we all woke tomorrow morning to news that the national guard has arrested Trump's entire administration
Won't happen unless the top military brass stage a coup. Which may end up worse.
Worse than the current Christofascist trajectory? We're already staring down the barrel of civilian labor camps for "political dissidents".
I'm lost on this strategy. Is he using the national guard to make the states' budgets cover protection for the ICE goon squads? We all know ICE has plenty of money and resources to protect themselves. I assume the states foot the bill for their respective national guard contingents.
He's using the National Guard because it's explicitly criminal to use the regular army
He could use the FBI, ATF, more ICE, etc.
a) he's already doing that, so that wouldn't get him the terrorizing headlines he wants b) he really wants the optics of deploying the military and going to war with evil "Democrat" cities because he's a fascist prick
And is in fact doing so. But regular army is much better trained to kill rather than arrest
When the feds issue the deployment order, they start covering the bills
Trump is trying really hard to get the war started. Or should I say his handlers are.
Are we sure trump authorized this? Did autopen sign the order? I ask because we haven't seen that fat fuck for a week now. Ever since he shutdown the government to steal Medicaid from old people and asked military generals to please clap he disappeared. Did he have another stroke? Shit his pants again? Get confused screaming into a mic about the woke? Where the fuck is kkkankles McBoneSpurs?