>>>Actually, that would play right into their hands. Like the Bolsheviks, they have control of the military right now, and most of the military will fire on American citizens if ordered to do so or in self-defense.<<<
Actually, no. Once the totalitarian is in power, they actively seek to diminish the military and replace it with a police power answerable only to the party or the personality running the state. This was the pattern in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China. In all three cases, the party set up state-run police organizations and by-passed the military to control the population.
The problem with the military is that many of those in the military - and not just here - do so out of love for the country and desire to defend their country, while the leftist totalitarian group seeks power for itself. Patriotism stands in the way of the totalitarian. Stalin killed all of the military officers in a purge; the military tried to kill Hitler.
I have the opposite opinion. I don’t think the military would fire on American citizens. On the contrary, I would think you’d see a Pinochet emerge before seeing the army go berserk.
I guess we’ll see. I really hope we’re both wrong. God help us.
In 1965, when the Communist PKI was gradually closing in on President "Bung" Sukarno (one of those charismatic, transitional political idiots Communists love to use), CIA people had a quiet word with the Indonesian military, and Col. Suharto took over the government, retired Sukarno, and directed a months-long purge of the PKI. Bodies washed up on Indonesian beaches for months as the army eliminated 800,000 PKI cadres. And that was the end of the Communist movement in Indonesia.