Re: the gestapo -- people can be so stupid.

[grumpyduck]

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to see an organized effort to get rid of these nazi thugs by harassing and embarrassing them. Fire hoses come to mind. That, and somehow arranging for a huge skein of geese to fly overhead and take a collective dump on them.

But given the nature of trumputin's minions, I also believe that there might be a plan here to escalate the situation to give hair furor an excuse to do something like declare martial law around election time and somehow fuck it up. Something along those lines.

Right now the protests are giving the gestapo an excuse to hang around, and giving "himmler" an excuse to send out more teams. If people just said fuck you and stayed home, the gestapo would have nothing to do and eventually get pulled. People can protest from home just as well in creative ways.

IMHO, the protesters are playing right into "himmler's" hand.

And yes, I left capitalization out on purpose.

[Newest Reality]

1. A rock and a hard place.

If we don't resist and he increases and expands this activity, our election may be at stake.

While your point is well taken, the failure to act and the idea that we should wait and just be reasonable could be an invitation for more oppression if the tyranny is not thrown off with conviction, resistance and unrelenting vigilance. We must do what we can do while it is still possible to do it.

This reminds me of something in the Constitution. I guess it all depends on how the regime's actions are interpreted and how serious the threat is perceived to be.

[Pantagruel]

3. If protesters stay home

Trump will claim he won. If protesters riot, Trump also claims the need for aiding local authority.

But a huge turnout of passive, Ghandi like , sit down protesters creates a huge spin problem for Trump and the GOP neo-fascisti.

[global1]

7. If I Understand The Purpose Of This Goon Army That Trump Employed - Their Mission Is To Protect....

federal buildings and federal properties.

So - I'm thinking that these protesters can still protest - but just do it in some other part of the city away from these federal properties. Then there would be no justification for these goons to harass the protesters.

Trump can still have them deployed in the city(s) - but they would only be able to patrol in the vicinity of the federal properties - which if the protesters don't visit - the goons are just standing around taking up space and costing us money.

[grumpyduck]

9. Okay, there you go.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

8. I think you may have the right idea...

The optics of his goons attacking rows of protesters who are all sitting would be very bad press.

[Lokee11]

4. Sun Tzu

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight."

- Sun Tzu

FDT

[KPN]

5. We are going there regardless. tRump doesn't have

the votes to win this election legitimately. He will refuse to concede and precipitate martial law at that point in the end. Either way we may and likely will get there. Staying home in the meantime allows him to claim victory/success via his “law and order” facade.

[grumpyduck]

13. See, that's been one of my points.

It can do whatever it wants, but Congress has the power to override it. And so far Moscow Mitch and his buddies have been mostly flying under the radar. Trumputin gets too much credit.

[KPN]

18. Agreed. But staying home doesn't guarantee

anything or anymore than being in the streets. In this time, it seems far too much to ask or expect that caring people will go along with being pent up voluntarily for the purpose of being sly. There’s too much real concern and passion behind that concern.

[hunter]

6. If Trump's goons continue to assault peaceful protesters they will be rejected by all good people.

Protesting peacefully is a courageous thing to do, and it's the right thing to do.

[Binkie The Clown]

10. What if all the protestors showed up wearing the same cammo outfits as the goons?

How would the goons know who to harass?

[grumpyduck]

14. I love it!

[2naSalit]

16. That thought has crossed my mind

A few times in the past couple days. There are ways to outsmart them, hope those ways are employed.

[beastie boy]

11. This is not how the Gestapo operates. They would live everyone to stay home.

Then, once they feel victorious in owning the streets, they will hang around indefinitely, and then they will invade your homes, one by one, without having to face public scrutiny, until all opposition is crushed. And no one but you will ever know that they invaded your home. Remember the addage about the Nazis coming for the Jews and Germans doing nothing about it because they were not Jews? That's where the Gestapo gets its power.

No, the answer, and we know it will work, is passive resistance, the more conspicuous the better. Confront but do not engage, no matter the provocation. This is the real Gestapo slayer.

[Fozzledick]

12. Trump's goal is to create a Kent State or Tienanmen style massacre.

He's too chickenshit to order it directly, but he's trying to create conditions that will make it happen.

[sop]

15. I agree: "the protesters are playing right into 'himmler's' hand."

What we're seeing now is the predictable rightwing backlash to every progressive social movement that's been perceived as going too far. Trump is trying to depict these local protests as a nationwide scourge of violent, leftwing terrorism that needs to be put down with extreme prejudice, and conflating gang-related gun violence in certain inner city neighborhoods with a national political/social movement.

I don't have any idea what's going on in Portland or Seattle, or what these protesters are still trying to accomplish. All I see on my screens is footage of black-clad, hooded figures running around in clouds of tear gas, tearing down or defacing monuments, vandalising federal buildings, taking over whole city blocks for weeks and being beaten and gassed by militarized police. It's not helping whatever "the cause" happens to be.

[allnews]

17. We must stop these tactics now

While we still can. Instead of protests go back to the 60’s sit ins. It will be the worse press ever, worse than what they did with the moms. We need total peace in order to show what they really are. They need to be seen dragging obviously peaceful people. I know the end result could be something like Kent state but I hope not. This action cannot be left to a few groups EVERYONE needs to participate when they can! We do not seem to have much time!