Trump’s Texas Mini-Me

Abbott is as useless as Trump.

The Austin American-Statesman reported Friday afternoon that internal memos showed military leaders were forced to scramble to find and train enough personnel for their new orders.

Of the 5,000, half were pulled off a border security mission. The memos illustrated what the report characterized as a "potentially rushed timeline for training on crowd control and de-escalation methods."

Two Guardsmen expressed serious concerns to the newspaper over the deployment, including an officer who said they should "never have been mobilized in the first place."

“I was shocked that they were mobilizing the amount of people that they were mobilizing,” the officer told the Statesman. “It doesn’t make any sense to me why we would be activated in such large numbers against the citizens we’re sworn to protect.”

The officer lamented, “Unless someone does something and grows a backbone in Congress or somewhere else, they’re going to continue to use us as political tools."

The second National Guard member told the outlet that despite some characterizations that Abbott is “being cautious,” the deployment “does strike me as a suppression of free speech ahead of time.”

“Did I swear an oath to the president? Did I swear an oath to the governor?” the member asked. “Or did I swear an oath to our basic, inalienable rights?”

Which sounds very familiar:

Three different advocacy organisations representing military families said they had heard from dozens of affected service members who expressed discomfort about being drawn into a domestic policing operation outside their normal field of operations. The groups said they have heard no countervailing opinions. “The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.

“Families are scared not just for their loved ones’ safety, although that’s a big concern, but also for what their service is being used to justify.”

Chris Purdy of the Chamberlain Network, whose stated mission is to “mobilize and empower veterans to protect democracy”, said he had heard similar things from half a dozen national guard members. “Morale is not great, is the quote I keep hearing,” he said.

That’s California. Not Texas. Not selected personnel at Ft. Bragg applauding their superannuated frat brother in chief. So the National Guard in blue California and red Texas are of one mind: they serve the people, not a person.

Which is a very hopeful sign for democracy. We could use a few of those right now. 

We can also see what we’re up against. It’s boobs all the way down. Trump activated 4,000 soldiers? Abbott had to activate 5,000, to just as much purpose as Trump.

Our public leaders are adolescents.