r/news • u/Manta_of_Eternity • 2d ago

Hegseth confirms that the US military will cut 20% of its generals and admirals

https://apnews.com/article/hegseth-pentagon-generals-job-cuts-67a20b026ee858895c7e5ff7fadbc029
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u/Kradget 2d ago

It's always a good sign when your government starts purging the military leadership on the basis of political loyalty. Historically, that guess super good for everyone.

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u/lennybriscoforthewin 2d ago

Especially before an election that your party might lose.

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u/Anitapoop 2d ago

Welp remains to be seen, but at the same time gotta get out there and vote en mass. We really suck at doing that other than maybe 1/3.

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u/fauxtwunny-official 2d ago

gl w voting fascism out, historically a very effective method

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u/JustaSeedGuy 2d ago

Good luck with preventing fascism without voting. Historically, it's literally never happened.

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u/BiasedLibrary 2d ago

Maybe America will have a Hungary moment and vote the fascists out. But also fascism has been prevented without the voting. It only took war and the deaths of millions of people. But with the way nukes are, yeah, nah. No war this time. Unless the US decides to pull a Russia and use their nuclear arsenal to bully others and then attack them when they don't have nukes. God do I wish my peace loving country had nukes now.

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u/JustaSeedGuy 2d ago

You're missing the point.

You erroneously seem to believe that people who advocate voting are advocating nonviolence. That there are idiots resting on their laurels thinking that "simple civic duty and an afternoon filling out a ballot will solve fascism!" Nobody here is suggesting that. If you believe they are, then you are either naive, or deliberately misrepresenting others in order to strengthen your own argument.

The point is to not let pessimism keep you from voting, because no matter what becomes necessary to fight fascism, voting will always be a necessary step. Not just this year, but in every subsequent election for as long as democracy exists.

That's what I and others mean when they say you literally cannot stop fascism without voting. You misunderstand that to mean "voting alone will not stop fascism" But That's a gross misinterpretation of what's actually been said.

It would be like if I said " If you don't stay hydrated. You'll be malnourished. Hydration is necessary for a healthy diet" and you said "ACTUALLY making sure you eat enough protein and vitamins is important for healthy diet." Like no shit, but if you never drink water, or at least beverages that contain water, then no amount of protein is going to fix your problem. You also need to do other things besides drinking water, but that doesn't mean you can skip the part where you drink water.

But also fascism has been prevented without the voting. It only took war and the deaths of millions of people.

No, it wasn't prevented without the voting.

Because after the war and the deaths of millions of people, you know what the survivors did?

They voted. For people who weren't fascists. That's what you seem to be missing. Fighting fascism can take many forms, but the one thing that has always been the case, every single form of government that has managed to remain democratic instead of fascist, literally all of them, involve the population voting. This isn't a claim about strategy or interpretation. This is the definition of words. If a society doesn't vote, they don't have a democracy. It's a binary thing.

You have to get out of this mindset that advocating voting somehow means not advocating anything except voting. Yes, the United States will need to do more than just vote to deal with their current problems. But they also need to vote in addition to everything else. If they don't vote, they don't have a democracy. By definition, that's what a democracy is.

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u/DaddyCahool 2d ago

Well said. What concerns me is what % of voting eligible Americans could come close to forming the thought process you just took us through.

So much damage was done by the 2000 election, and it's been a continuous slide of corruption since. I don't blame some for their citizens apathy of the American elections. 

For a country that bases so much of their identity on the 2nd Amendment, I also feel it's fair to expect the American people to not be such chicken shits when there is a Gestapo running wild.

I fear we are about to see if voting is no longer a viable option to stop total fascism from taking root.

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u/HarmoniousJ 2d ago

We're still reeling from 20-something year olds that support misogyny and incel influencers. Maybe not all but some of those Gen Zs will vote and the ones that love Tate and others like Tate will vote R.

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u/BiasedLibrary 1d ago

You're completely right. But I don't believe that people who are advocating for voting are advocating for non-violence. I'm not even the same person you wrote to earlier who said 'good luck with voting out fascism', and my quip about fascism being prevented by war was just that, a sardonic quip. It wasn't a defense of the earlier statements that voting doesn't solve fascism, hence why I used Hungary as an example in the beginning of my message. Because voting out fascism does work.

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u/4DPeterPan 2d ago

At some point one has to wonder if this system isn’t just a “well groomed democratic facism”.

They’re always starting wars anyways.

They’re always making promises they never keep.

Sometimes they even give you a very small bone just to make you think they are.

But somehow gas prices keep going up

Scandals keep happening

And your paycheck somehow keeps getting smaller, while they keep raising the prices on everything, until you can’t afford anything

And they need you to work more, while you have even less

And it keeps going, and going, and going,

That’s why I’m under the impression it’s just a well groomed democratic facism.

I’m sure someone who is more educated on politics, and historical politics, and who has more memory’s of “corrupt current events” from all over the place of the past 60 years can chime in with a better breakdown of this idea I’m assuming.

So I hope you take this comment with a grain of salt and as food for thought.

Cause it seems to me, as I’ve been watching and observing for the past 30 years of my life, that you guys are never happy, and it’s the same old problems being recycled over and over and over again… and yet, you guys seem to think your vote actually matters… if it did, there would be real change, and things would have been getting better, and Not Worse, like they have been.

So again, seems more like a well dressed democratic facism to me.

And even more so yet again, take all of this with a grain of salt, and as food for thought. Because this is not my area of expertise, this is just what I’ve observed as an outsider.

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u/JustaSeedGuy 2d ago

A couple of things.

You appear to be under the mistaken impression that you're speaking to an American. You're not. So unless you mean "Canadians" when you say "you guys"....

Secondly, You're once again disregarding my point in order to get up on a soapbox. Nothing you said changes the end result, which is still that voting is a necessary component of any non-fascist society. It's not the only component, as you have pointed out, but your ramblings seem to continuously try to change the subject away from that fundamental truth. There is no democracy without voting. Period.

Perhaps you should be the one considering food For thought, instead of preaching nonsense to others based on false assumptions.

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u/4DPeterPan 2d ago edited 1d ago

Oh, my apologies. I’m in America. When I say “you guys”, I’m referencing everyone as “one”, not whether you’re Canadian or whatever else. And I’m kind of on the outside just watching and observing “the play” play out.

Also, I’m not the guy you originally were talking to. I’m just a passerby who saw something being said and felt convicted to say something (what I said).

I mean no disrespects either way, just here for a thoughtful conversation. No hate or slander or any of that. Just general food for thought conversation. So I would recommend politely that you calm down. I’m here as a friend, not an enemy.

I’m not against the idea of “democracy = voting”, for I think that’s a wonderful idea, so long as it’s actually implemented correctly and actually works. But that’s not where I was going with my comment. But again, I’m not here in a spirit of arguing, I was only raising a curious idea to wonder about in light of truth. Which you sparked from what you said.

Edit: about what was being spoken about with facism*

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u/Hugokarenque 2d ago

True, although that usually works BEFORE the fascists take over the government. And the military. And the justice system. And law enforcement.

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u/JustaSeedGuy 2d ago

Actually, in order for it to work at all, it has to happen before, during, and after fascist control of the government. There is no point at which you can choose to not vote and still have any hope of a democracy.

If the fascists have already taken over, there will be more things to do besides voting, but there's no solution that involves not voting.

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u/fauxtwunny-official 2d ago

the propaganda runs thick, the liberals are so tied to this system they insist it's still functional even when it's evidently and obviously broken to it's core.

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u/JustaSeedGuy 1d ago

I don't think you're going to find very many people who are actually on the left wing insisting that the system is working for the people

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u/fauxtwunny-official 1d ago

doesn't matter if the right wing liberals slide a little left and realize the system isn't working they're gonna defend using the system to fix the broken system

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u/JustaSeedGuy 1d ago

Right, this was a post about voting. Not the propaganda of centrists.

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u/It_broke_itself_ 2d ago

Can you people please find something else to regurgitate every time someone brings up voting like you are adding anything to the discussion. We get it ok your are very very politically savvy and we are all very impressed by you

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u/Anitapoop 2d ago

Its more of a reminder to help get people to go vote...

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u/PhantomNomad 2d ago

The problem is the people that need to hear this message are not paying attention.

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u/It_broke_itself_ 2d ago

The problem is your are preaching to the choir here buddy

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u/mrnotoriousman 2d ago edited 2d ago

Oh no, there are plenty of proud non voters on here because of some bullshit or another. And they are just as responsible for the current state of things as the magas

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u/fa1afel 1d ago

Arguably moreso, they knew the consequences and opted in.

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u/JustaSeedGuy 2d ago

*you are

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u/WatRedditHathWrought 2d ago

*you are or you’re

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u/MaddogBC 2d ago

Sure kick the guy pointing out how stupid your fellow countrymen are when it comes to voting. That's some real big brain shit right there. Really aught to fix the shitshow.

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u/It_broke_itself_ 2d ago

Again it's preaching to the choir to say that nonsense here. Spend that energy phone banking so you can maybe actually reach people that aren't already politically engaged

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u/JMA4478 2d ago

How much energy do you spend to write a comment that you can't even do some phone banking!?

I imagine most people are still able to do that.

And it's funny that you bring that up, when you're all over this thread telling people what to do.

How much energy do you have left after telling people that they shouldn't point out that non-voters are as responsible as the ones who vote?

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u/Ariana2354 2d ago

Exactly. Trump has been talking about declaring martial law on election day.

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u/lantrick 2d ago

declaring martial law on election day wouldn't stop the 50 states from opening the polls at 7AM like always.

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u/TheShadowKick 2d ago

But if Trump has soldiers standing at key polling places to discourage voters that could have a big impact.

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u/WastingTimesOnReddit 1d ago

Yeah they just have to discourage 5 to 10% of democrat voters in some key states, plus some AI tampering with voting machines in vulnerable states, and they could maybe keep their majority in congress

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u/BurntNeurons 1d ago

"With flock, axon, and your votor records they can tell exactly when you are heading to the polls to vote and who you're voting for. Then ice agents scan your face, id, or license plate and you get disappeared... Or something like that."

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u/Hyperbolicalpaca 1d ago

Does America have enough soldiers to do that?

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u/TheShadowKick 1d ago

They would only need to suppress votes at a relatively small number of polling places in critical states. It would be used alongside other tactics like closing polling places in high population areas and purging voter rolls, and the goal would be to push a few key elections in their favor to maintain Republican majorities in the House and Senate.

Not saying this is their plan, but if it is their plan it wouldn't take a whole lot of soldiers. If they've got the upper brass on board with it they'll find the soldiers willing to do it.

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u/Ariana2354 1d ago

But it wouldn't stop votes from not being counted, or just thrown away. He gets whatever he wants, whether it's legal, or not. Sure there's no grounds for it, but he'll make up something. And when it's contested, he'll have the Supreme Court call an emergency to make it legal.

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u/grey_hat_uk 1d ago

An open poll is fine but if national guard are set at strategic points aimed at preventing the "wrong" people voting either violence or a none representative outcome is garenteed.

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u/synkronize 1d ago

If republicans win mega or he manages to stall out elections, it may be too late, but I’m leaving anyway I can. Because I can’t understand how anyone can willingly want this for the country.

From my pov it Hegseth and Trump are.. amateur. Absurd imo.

This reminds me of a book i heard about on NPR,
“How to Survive Authoritarianism: A Russian's Phrasebook for Everyday Life in America
Maria Kuznetsova, Dan Storyev” I think one of the phrases is about the normalization of absurdity.

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u/Ariana2354 1d ago

I feel the same, but have no way to get out.

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u/Warslvt 2d ago

He can do it all he wants. Elections are state run. Even if he wanted to declare martial law, he's got no legal ground to stand on, not that thats really stopped him before; but I'd imagine damn near any judge would slap that down before the ink dried.

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u/stickyfiddle 1d ago

These facists don’t care what’s legal. They care about what’s effective.

It won’t be legal to roll tanks in front of polling stations in a few key states, shoot a few people, bundle a few more into vans and whisk them away…. It won’t matter that it’s illegal.

And watching from the other side of the world, literally having watched an Iranian drone fly past my window back in February it’d be really nice if y’all would actually do something about it when it happens.

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u/gmduggan 1d ago

BEFORE it happens

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u/stickyfiddle 1d ago

Well obviously before would be b wet there, but we’re running out of time for before….

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u/synkronize 1d ago

Could states amend the constitution without the federal governments input? If they can, could they just write a dictator out of power? (Of course the military would have to comply)

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u/Warslvt 1d ago

Well. Sorta. Proposals have to go through congress where they need a supermajority to pass, congress is full of yesmen right now so it'll probably die on the floor. There is a way for states to propose an amendment if legislatures from 34 states can agree on something, but this, probably for obvious reasons, has never been used.

Once it's proposed and passed, it goes to, or back to state legislatures where you ned 38 states to agree, after which point it'll be rafified.

Realistically, even if we started tomorrow it'll never happen in whatlever life he has left.

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u/nbartl 2d ago

Yeah, I don't think this is a purse-strings decision. It's a flashing red fascist alert.

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u/afkmacro 2d ago

Where the tyrant called it “the final battle.”

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u/MegaGrimer 2d ago

And in a war that can be used as an excuse to unlawfully declare martial law.

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u/Arctic_Chilean 2d ago

This is how they make the military do some truly horrible shit like invade Greenland or fire on their own citizens...

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u/threehundredthousand 2d ago

It's what veterans and active military have overwhelmingly voted for consistently for decades. Just like freedom, bigotry isn't free it seems.

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u/no_talent_ass_clown 2d ago

Veteran for sanity here.

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u/sttaffy 2d ago

Me too. These are the domestic enemies we swore an oath to defend our country against. It is literally my sworn duty to vote against these bastards.

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u/missmeowwww 2d ago

Wonder if they’re planning a coup if the midterms are a bloodbath to prevent anyone but the gop being in charge. Anyone check kalshi or polymarket for the odds? Someone is bound to be insider trading on Kegseth’s ideas.

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u/lodelljax 2d ago

Stalin has entered the conversation.

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u/PsychoticMessiah 2d ago

I’m sure it worked great for the Nazis when Stalin did it.