Jerry Pournelle On Brownshirts

Writing from Chaos Manor:

Hitler and Mussolini used to disrupt their political’ opponents’ meetings and speeches, Hitler’s gangs with truncheons, Mussolini’s with castor oil which they forcibly fed to opposition leaders. These tactics had been honed by the Reds before the Revolution, and were exported for use by the Communists in various parts of Europe. To the best of my knowledge there have been no such operations by Trump’s followers, but apparently there are increasing numbers of protests at his meetings. While there have always been some roughhousing and scuffles in American politics, raiding each other’s gatherings has not been traditional, with some exceptions. More usual is getting yourself thrown out of someone else’s meetings, thus getting the publicity rather than the speaker. I expect to see a lot of that in the next few weeks, and a great deal more after the conventions.

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So far no Castor Oil, and I expect Trump and his followers are too smart to retaliate in kind; but we’ll see. Interesting times indeed. And as you say, they are protesting what he is fighting. I saw a number of “Veterans for Trump” looking rather disgruntled but doing nothing.  The US Army, led by West Pointers, is not the Wehrmacht of the Thirties, nor is the American Legion anything like the Stahlhut. But there are veterans of the Iraqi wars not all that much older than the protesters, and it is rather unwise to taunt them beyond the limits of patience.  Eventually that is going to happen and the result will not be pretty.  Today’s veterans are all veterans of a volunteer army; very few squishes among them.