If you've alerted them to real threats - and provided them with accurate up-to-date information - then it's fairly likely that you'll have a good bunch of good people trying to be aware of the dangers and taking appropriate steps to protect themselves and their families etc (although you have to be a little careful to keep some measure of control - people can be dumb dangerous animals when simply left to their own devices, and the lid can get blown clean off).
[insert obscure TV & movie references here: The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street, 1941, The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming, Cold Turkey, etc]
Which brings us to the MAGA rubes. If you've thrown all manner of bullshit conspiracy fantasies at them, and you've got them all amped up over perceived threats that aren't real, then you've just got an angry unruly mob of self-righteous zealots who'll do the most atrocious things, believing they're perfectly justified in the name of defending hearth and home and blah blah blah.
That's the difference and that's the point.
And fake lord help us if we put those idiots in charge of anything of consequence.
WaPo: (pay wall)
Commander of Space Force unit fired after accusing the military of pushing an agenda ‘rooted in Marxism’
The self-published book carries a conspiratorial title and a purportedly urgent message: A Marxist plot is afoot to infiltrate the military and overthrow the U.S. government, it alleges.
Some of its subjects are familiar specters in right-wing politics — critical race theory, diversity initiatives and the New York Times’s 1619 Project — but these claims came from a new source last week: an active-duty member of the U.S. Space Force.
Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier published his book, “Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military,” this week and appeared on multiple conservative podcasts to promote it, each time criticizing Defense Department leadership and accusing the agency of pushing an agenda that is “rooted in Marxism.”
Lohmeier, who spent more than a decade with the Air Force before joining the military’s newest branch in 2020, was fired Friday for his comments, a move first reported by Military.com a day later and confirmed by The Washington Post on Sunday. Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, the head of Space Operations Command, relieved Lohmeier of his command of a Colorado-based squadron that detects ballistic missile launches “due to loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead,” a Space Force spokesperson said in a statement.
“This decision was based on public comments made by Lt. Col. Lohmeier in a recent podcast,” said the spokesperson, who added that an investigation is underway “on whether these comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity.”
In an email to The Post, Lohmeier said that he consulted with a military public affairs officer and legal counsel before publishing the book and that he had a team of attorneys read the manuscript.
“I complied with what I understood was required as part of the pre-publication process,” he said.
Lohmeier said he did not inform his chain of command that he was writing a book.
“The entirety of the work was done during my free time, after duty hours and on weekends, using my own resources,” he said.
Lohmeier, who is based in Colorado, graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2006 and spent time as a fighter pilot and instructor.
A description of the book promises readers that “after becoming aware of the Marxist conquest of American society, you will never again look at things in the same way.” In podcast interviews over the past two weeks, Lohmeier argued that part of that “conquest” has taken place in the U.S. military.
“What we saw taking place in the country and in the military, frankly, during this past year especially was reminiscent of Mao’s cultural revolution where you had to toe a certain party line,” Lohmeier said on “The Steve Gruber Show,” a conservative radio program, in a reference to Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China, which is estimated to have led to 1.5 million deaths.
Some experts have denied Lohmeier’s assertions.
“We seem to have more and more people spouting off about Marxism, communism and socialism who don’t seem to have a clue what they’re talking about,” said John Sipher, a former CIA operative and fellow at the Atlantic Council, in a tweet responding to Lohmeier’s comments.
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