Why an Attempted Military Coup Would Likely Result in All-Out Civil War
Why is it that calls for civil wars and military coups always seem to come from the left? These calls come from unserious people who, of course, have no real idea what the consequences of what they are calling for would be. And they would be disastrous for the country but most certainly for the left.
The United States has already experienced one such conflict, and while we call it the "American Civil War," it was a war of secession, where part of the country (ironically, 13 states) tried to break away and form a new nation. They failed, but that war proved to be the bloodiest in American history, and it generated ill will that, in some quarters, persists even today.
On Monday, my colleague Mike Miller presented us with still another unhinged leftist calling for a military overthrow of the United States government. His reason? Orange Man Bad.
OK I'm confused.
I thought President Donald Trump was "Hitler," a "fascist," and other scary authoritarian stuff?
Turns out a UCLA professor — I know; try to control your shock and amazement — says his "only hope" is "violent resistance by our military" to oust America's democratically-elected 47th president.
That's right —Peter Arenella, a professor of criminal law at the University of California, Los Angeles, urged the U.S. military to take action against President Donald Trump — as the only way out of what he delusionally believes to be an imminent alliance between Trump's U.S.and Vladimir Putin's Russia.
In a post to X (formerly Twitter), Arenella wrote:
At this point, my only hope for the US to avoid becoming an ally to Russia is a violent resistance by our military. Tragic to say that because the military are trained to avoid any politically motivated intervention.
This professor, Peter Arenella, doesn't seem to understand the likely consequences, even if he and his compatriots were somehow able to entice a portion of our military to attempt something like this.
There are three possible outcomes:
The first and best outcome would be that the United States military would, en masse, flatly refuse to engage in any armed uprising against the National Command Authority - the commander in chief, President Trump. This is the most likely outcome, even after years of the Obama/Biden degradation of our military. This is a big, broad red line that nobody in uniform should want to cross.
The second and least likely outcome would be the fulfillment of Professor Arenella's fever dream, a military coup, which would also almost certainly end up with a military dictatorship. Not an ideal outcome.
The third outcome involves some portion of the military going over and attempting outcome number two while the rest refuse, with civilians either being caught in the middle or overtly taking sides. In other words, civil war. This would be a civil war that would pit left against right. And that would not end to the left's advantage.
Why? Look at the map. The left is concentrated in non-contiguous, mostly urban areas. They are dependent on the countryside for virtually everything: Food, electricity, fuel, clothing, and all the requirements of a modern lifestyle. Food alone would be a major problem; if the right's forces intercepted only half of attempted food shipments into a city like Chicago, starvation would set in very quickly. Those urban areas would descend into chaos. What supplies got in would be grabbed by the thugs with the most gang members. Ordinary folk would starve. And that’s the main advantage the right would have in such an event. Penned into their cities, deprived of internet, electricity, and food, the urban areas would very rapidly destroy themselves.
All the right would have to do is wait.
President Biden, while still in office, dismissed such an idea, claiming that any American insurgency would need "F-15s and nukes." He was, as is usually the case, wrong. There are many ways to deal with an F-15 without having an F-15, just as infantry always have ways of dealing with tanks. For one thing, that F-15 has to land sometime, its support crews are vulnerable - and its pilot lives somewhere, and likely has a family.
Remember also: President Trump is weeding a lot of chaff out of our military's upper ranks and support structures, and recruiting under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has shot up. And it's unlikely in the extreme that these fired-up young recruits are stampeding to join up so they can take on the nefarious Trump apparatus.
There's no good outcome for anything like this. The most likely result wouldn't be some miraculous rebirth of liberty and a return to the founding principles of the republic, much as we would like to see that. It would result in hatreds lasting generations, in a nation torn asunder, with our cities collapsed and, likely, burning.
That's the problem with midwits like Peter Arenella. They simply have no idea what they are talking about when they casually call for a civil war because of their fears of President Trump.
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