“I believe that are a fair number of police and military who will follow the lead of the President no matter what the situation, not all but many will.”
Okay, we have some recent estimates on the numbers who will follow orders and who, exactly, will follow those orders. They come to us from Libya. I happened to be doing independent contract work for Israeli companies when the Libyan civil war broke out.
In 2011, Qaddhafi ordered his army to fire on Libyans who resisted his dictatorship. Big mistake. About 75% of the Libyan soldiers deserted and headed home to protect their families. Qaddhafi was forced to call out his mercenary southern army.
The mercenary army attacked Libyan students. Bad mistake. Libyans exploded in rage. The army deserters joined with the provincial militias and attacked Qaddhafi’s palace guard, the mercenary army and the remnants of Libya’s army who didn’t desert. These remnants were mostly cadets (similar to what we call boots) led by thieving senior officers who tried to use them as cannon fodder so they could escape with their stolen goods and money. In a nutshell, both the southern mercenary army and the cadets were slaughtered and shoveled into mass graves.
IOW, those who stay and decide to follow orders will be killed. That’s the Libyan example.