I mostly agree with you. But this idea of “permission” doesn’t grok. They don’t need legal/corporate permission if they’re being not-so-secretly empowered by the fascist mechanisms you have already alluded to. They don’t need law if their organization is more powerful than (or actively colluding with) the enforcers of that law. If your alternative is overthrowing capitalism, is it such a stretch of the imagination that their solution is overthrowing democracy?

I don’t know where the battle lines would be drawn. I’ve heard people make good-sounding arguments for urban vs rural, but I think the states supporting texas’ border… policy… demonstrate an alarming willingness to defy federal authority. Further, the fact Brandon hasn’t yet recalled them is powerfully suggestive, in my opinion, that he doesn’t actually have de facto command of these units, despite his supposed authority as commander in chief. Further still, this article was incredibly chilling for me to read. We have acted on precisely none of these excellent suggestions since they were made three years ago. I don’t hold out hopeful prospects of a peaceful solution here. The most likely avenue for peace qua peace in my opinion, is probably through a bloodless authoritarian coup. It would be a mistake to allow such an event to take place.