Last time I was on book tour, I spent a night in a hotel in a suburb of Jackson, MS, not so far from the Delta town where I grew up. On the far side of the parking lot was a military surplus store. Having nothing better to do, I walked over and took a look in the window. It being Sunday evening, the store was closed. But through the bars erected to keep the goods in and the riffraff out, I could see enough weaponry and protective gear to mount a good-sized attack on the state Capitol, which was all of five or six miles away. I remember thinking that I hoped nobody ever decided to organize such an attack, since a good bit of what they might need was right there.
The problem is, they're playing soldier they way we did as kids, but they have real guns with real bullets. 90 percent of them couldn't hit your car standing 15 feet away, but one of their stupid misses might hit something or someone. It's incredible where we are. Switchblades were a real danger when I was a kid. They were illegal. These nuts laugh at switchblades now. Every state where they were illegal has made them legal, because why not? If you let someone walk around brandishing an AK-47, what does having a knife in his pocket matter? Not much.
Lucian, I will go ahead and ask you about my worst fear, as my Polish-born wife asked me today. 74 million people voted for him. According to the Washington Post/ABC poll released this morning, about 85 percent of them are standing by him. Rural America is armed to the teeth. How much should we fear them? At peak strength, the Red Army during WWll had about 12.5 million in its ranks, one of whom was my wife’s father, so I know some stories. Can the American military handle these armed lunatics? I was never in the military like you were. Am I overly worried?
Here's the thing, Steve. Tracy has been afraid something like the assault on the Congress would happen for some time. I tend to be essentially optimistic and told her not to worry. Then it happened. I was wrong. She has been afraid of all the armed rednecks as well, expressing it kind of like you did. Tonight she said, the army can't be everywhere all the time, so how do you defend against these people if they decide to do something? Well, as it happens, the army can be 50 places at one time because every state has its own National Guard, so I am certain they will be used to defend state capitols next week. But the larger question is, can the U.S. Army protect us from quite literally tens of millions of Trump supporting rednecks if they lose it and go crazy? On an individual level, no. If an armed redneck gets mad at Truscott and comes after him, neither the army or the cops can protect me. When I got death threats during my years supporting my Hemings cousins, I had several guns and I would have used them if it came to that. But scaling it up on a larger canvas, all the army can really do is react if something happens. The good news is that it's so fucking difficult to plan and carry out a real armed attack, and the rednecks are so untrained in military maneuvers and the like, not to mention lacking skills as marksmen, they would be quickly put down. But there may be significant loss of life before they are suppressed. It didn't even take any of these numbskulls using whatever weapons they carried for five people to be killed last week. I think I can tell you with some certainty that if a crowd the size that attacked the Capital had gone in there with rifles and handguns, many, many innocent people including members of congress would have died. Many more of the numbskulls would have been killed by the time it was over, but it would have been a bloodbath. So I guess the answer is yes. There is reason to be worried, if only because of the number of weapons that are out there. But the answer is no, if you mean can they actually take over some institution or office of government or business and hold it for any length of time. The firepower that the military has that they can bring to bear augurs against that happening. The army could quite literally kill hundreds of them within minutes, thousands within hours. It's scary having an Apache fly over you with mini-guns and missiles hanging all over it. Hell it's scary for a tired old Blackhawk to come calling armed with only two M-240 machine guns. It's just as scary to be facing 4-500 soldiers in an Infantry battalion. My grandfather was once asked by Claire Booth Luce when they were having dinner in London a few months before we entered the war, what he believed was the most perfect thing in the world. "An infantry battalion," he answered without blinking an eye. Why, she asked him as she slipped the key to her hotel room into his lap under a table. "Because an infantry battalion will do any damn thing you tell it to do," he said. He was and is correct. The problem the Trumpian numbskulls have is that they do not know this. But that is also our problem, because their lack of this knowledge may delude them into thinking they can prevail and encourage them to act. They are stupid, but they are dangerous. That is the nub of it.
Last time I was on book tour, I spent a night in a hotel in a suburb of Jackson, MS, not so far from the Delta town where I grew up. On the far side of the parking lot was a military surplus store. Having nothing better to do, I walked over and took a look in the window. It being Sunday evening, the store was closed. But through the bars erected to keep the goods in and the riffraff out, I could see enough weaponry and protective gear to mount a good-sized attack on the state Capitol, which was all of five or six miles away. I remember thinking that I hoped nobody ever decided to organize such an attack, since a good bit of what they might need was right there.
The problem is, they're playing soldier they way we did as kids, but they have real guns with real bullets. 90 percent of them couldn't hit your car standing 15 feet away, but one of their stupid misses might hit something or someone. It's incredible where we are. Switchblades were a real danger when I was a kid. They were illegal. These nuts laugh at switchblades now. Every state where they were illegal has made them legal, because why not? If you let someone walk around brandishing an AK-47, what does having a knife in his pocket matter? Not much.
Lucian, I will go ahead and ask you about my worst fear, as my Polish-born wife asked me today. 74 million people voted for him. According to the Washington Post/ABC poll released this morning, about 85 percent of them are standing by him. Rural America is armed to the teeth. How much should we fear them? At peak strength, the Red Army during WWll had about 12.5 million in its ranks, one of whom was my wife’s father, so I know some stories. Can the American military handle these armed lunatics? I was never in the military like you were. Am I overly worried?
Well said.
Here's the thing, Steve. Tracy has been afraid something like the assault on the Congress would happen for some time. I tend to be essentially optimistic and told her not to worry. Then it happened. I was wrong. She has been afraid of all the armed rednecks as well, expressing it kind of like you did. Tonight she said, the army can't be everywhere all the time, so how do you defend against these people if they decide to do something? Well, as it happens, the army can be 50 places at one time because every state has its own National Guard, so I am certain they will be used to defend state capitols next week. But the larger question is, can the U.S. Army protect us from quite literally tens of millions of Trump supporting rednecks if they lose it and go crazy? On an individual level, no. If an armed redneck gets mad at Truscott and comes after him, neither the army or the cops can protect me. When I got death threats during my years supporting my Hemings cousins, I had several guns and I would have used them if it came to that. But scaling it up on a larger canvas, all the army can really do is react if something happens. The good news is that it's so fucking difficult to plan and carry out a real armed attack, and the rednecks are so untrained in military maneuvers and the like, not to mention lacking skills as marksmen, they would be quickly put down. But there may be significant loss of life before they are suppressed. It didn't even take any of these numbskulls using whatever weapons they carried for five people to be killed last week. I think I can tell you with some certainty that if a crowd the size that attacked the Capital had gone in there with rifles and handguns, many, many innocent people including members of congress would have died. Many more of the numbskulls would have been killed by the time it was over, but it would have been a bloodbath. So I guess the answer is yes. There is reason to be worried, if only because of the number of weapons that are out there. But the answer is no, if you mean can they actually take over some institution or office of government or business and hold it for any length of time. The firepower that the military has that they can bring to bear augurs against that happening. The army could quite literally kill hundreds of them within minutes, thousands within hours. It's scary having an Apache fly over you with mini-guns and missiles hanging all over it. Hell it's scary for a tired old Blackhawk to come calling armed with only two M-240 machine guns. It's just as scary to be facing 4-500 soldiers in an Infantry battalion. My grandfather was once asked by Claire Booth Luce when they were having dinner in London a few months before we entered the war, what he believed was the most perfect thing in the world. "An infantry battalion," he answered without blinking an eye. Why, she asked him as she slipped the key to her hotel room into his lap under a table. "Because an infantry battalion will do any damn thing you tell it to do," he said. He was and is correct. The problem the Trumpian numbskulls have is that they do not know this. But that is also our problem, because their lack of this knowledge may delude them into thinking they can prevail and encourage them to act. They are stupid, but they are dangerous. That is the nub of it.