The Enemy Within

The people most in charge of the military -- Trump and Hegseth -- laid out their long-range plans yesterday in front of hundreds of military brass. You can connect the dots, right? 

"We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard," said Trump, who claimed "We're under invasion from within .... Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room, because it's the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control. It won't get out of control."

Hegseth called for troops to ignore “stupid rules of engagement ....We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement.”

I believe any fair interpretation of Hegseth's words, following Trump's lead, means they're okay with war crimes, and the people worthy of demoralizing violence are Trump's political opponents. They're pretty explicit that we'll soon (?) be seeing beat-downs of peaceful American citizen protesters. And who knows what other trumpian bullying will come for the accredited reporters and social media influencers who continue to document Trump's lawless, corrupt presidency.

Mr. President, I'm your enemy, shure nuff. And I'm within. What are you gonna do about it?

I'm not forgetting the cowed institutions which preemptively punish free speech. They seem to fear the wrath of Trump and intend to please him. An example just this week at UNC-Chapel Hill, which acted unilaterally based on pure speculation, rumor, and unverified accusations and placed on "administrative leave" (often the first step toward firing) a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern studies, Dwayne Dixon:

The move to place Dixon on leave came after Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet posted a photo on X of a flyer at Georgetown that read: “Hey, fascist! Catch!” The same phrase was printed on a bullet recovered by police after the fatal shooting of Turning Point founder and conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University last month. 

The flyer, according to Kolvet’s post, included a QR code linked to “the John Brown Club” and also read: “The only political group that celebrates when Nazis die.” ... It’s unclear whether Dixon had ever been a member of a John Brown Gun Club.

On Saturday, Fox News reported that Dixon is a member of Redneck Revolt, a group founded in 2016 that describes itself as “an aboveground militant formation” that “stands for organized defense of our communities.” The group is against white supremacy, capitalism and patriarchy, according to its principles.

Dixon ... told The Daily Tar Heel that he has not been a member of Redneck Revolt since 2018. The organization itself disbanded in 2019, according to a pop-up message displayed on its website Wednesday. And there does not appear to be any evidence Dixon was involved with an incident at Georgetown University — hundreds of miles from Chapel Hill — that spurred concerns over the group among conservative activists and media.

The North Carolina chapter of the American Association of University Professors on Wednesday criticized UNC’s actions against Dixon, writing in a statement: “Right-wing activists are attacking Dixon for prior membership in a group that has been inactive since 2019, and are baselessly connecting him to flyers allegedly posted by a different group on a different campus outside of North Carolina.”