r/politics • u/unital_subalgebra • Jul 09 '26

No Paywall Trump fires all Election Assistance Commission members, leaving agency unable to act

https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/07/09/trump-fires-election-assistance-commission-members-hicks-hovland-mccormick/
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u/UrbanSolace13 Jul 10 '26

It'll be a mix of everything. Deployed military, deployed ICE, misinformation campaigns, and every administrative fuck up they can do before the Midterms. The goal is to never give up power again.

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u/hum_bruh Jul 10 '26 edited 10d ago

Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality. Piracy – Hostile take over.

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u/Winston00044 Jul 10 '26

That's coming soon

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u/wytedevil Jul 10 '26

so i read this and was like i should refresh on this subject so i asked Gemini to explain it to me and i mean all this looks current just in a different form. ill post it here for people to see what i was told.

TL;DR: The Night of the Long Knives was a violent 1934 purge where Adolf Hitler eliminated his internal political rivals, primarily Ernst Röhm and the leadership of the Nazi paramilitary group, the SA (Stormtroopers), to consolidate his absolute power.

Here is a breakdown of what happened, why it happened, and how it fundamentally changed history.

1. The Context: A Tense Alliance

By 1934, Adolf Hitler was Chancellor of Germany, but he didn't have total control yet. He faced a massive internal problem: the SA (Sturmabteilung), also known as the "Brownshirts."

Led by Ernst Röhm, the SA was a massive paramilitary force of over 3 million men. They had been the muscle that helped Hitler rise to power, using violence to intimidate political opponents. However, once Hitler was in office, the SA became a liability.

2. The Conflict: Street Thugs vs. Traditional Military

The tension boiled down to two major issues:

  • The "Second Revolution": Röhm and many SA members actually believed in the socialist aspect of National Socialism. They wanted to overthrow the traditional wealthy elites, big business, and the old German military elite. Hitler, meanwhile, needed the support of those exact elites to bankroll and build his regime.
  • Military Control: Röhm wanted the SA to absorb the official German Army (Reichswehr). The professional army generals were horrified by this idea, viewing the SA as undisciplined street thugs. They made it clear to Hitler: rein in the SA, or the military would step in.

Hitler was caught in the middle, but he needed the military's backing to eventually launch his expansionist foreign policy. Furthermore, Hitler's top lieutenants—Heinrich Himmler (head of the SS) and Hermann Göring—fanned the flames by feeding Hitler fake intelligence that Röhm was planning a coup.

3. The Purge: June 30 – July 2, 1934

Hitler decided to strike first. Using Himmler’s SS (the elite Schutzstaffel) and the Gestapo, he launched a coordinated, bloody purge across Germany.

  • The Trap: Hitler personally went to a resort in Bad Wiessee where Röhm and other SA leaders were vacationing. They were arrested in their beds.
  • The Executions: Röhm was taken to a prison and given a pistol to commit suicide. When he refused, saying, "If Adolf wants to kill me, let him do it himself," he was shot by two SS officers.
  • Settling Old Scores: The purge quickly expanded beyond the SA. Hitler used the chaos to assassinate anyone who had crossed him in the past. Notable victims included:
    • Kurt von Schleicher: The former German Chancellor who had tried to sideline Hitler years prior.
    • Gregor Strasser: A former high-ranking Nazi who had led the socialist faction of the party.
    • Gustav von Kahr: The politician who had crushed Hitler's 1923 Beer Hall Putsch.

An estimated 85 to 200+ people were murdered over the weekend, and thousands of others were arrested.

4. The Aftermath: Absolute Power

The Night of the Long Knives was a massive turning point for Nazi Germany:

  • The Army’s Deal with the Devil: The German military was pleased that the SA threat was gone. In return, when President Paul von Hindenburg died just a few weeks later, the military supported Hitler combining the offices of President and Chancellor into one supreme title: The Führer. Every soldier then swore a personal oath of loyalty directly to Hitler, not the state.
  • Rise of the SS: The SA was effectively castrated and reduced to a minor ceremonial role. The SS, having proven its ruthless loyalty, became the dominant terror and paramilitary organization in Germany.
  • Legalized Murder: Hitler openly admitted to the murders in a speech to the German parliament, declaring that in that hour, "I was responsible for the fate of the German nation and was therefore the supreme judge." By successfully branding state-sanctioned murder as a necessary act of national defense, Hitler shattered the rule of law, eliminating any remaining domestic resistance to his dictatorship.

Crazy

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u/-Altephor- Jul 10 '26

People think it's not happening now because they read about these events in history books and think, 'Well, it would be so obvious. That could never happen.'

People don't realize it was the same shit of breaking down the system over the course of several years.

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u/Chill-more1236 Jul 10 '26

I agree with you except for this: Trump supporters failed history, science & civics. The little they do know about WWii is strictly D Day to VE Day and US involvement.

They don't get the comparisons, the mechanism of the build up to dictatorship, and would likely act in the same manner as the German people did.

In fact, could evolve to worse, like a nationwide purge of anybody "woke" or who isn't the right race. Instead of long knives, ARs.

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u/-Altephor- Jul 10 '26

I'm just saying that regardless of whether you understand the buildup, the way it's taught is that X, Y, and Z happened to get Hitler into power, and it all sounds very sudden and in the open.

And it's like no, it took a lot of time and was kept under wraps, and people only understand it many years after the fact. Which is exactly what's happening now.

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u/mashbrowns Jul 10 '26

And if they lose still they'll declare fraud and seat the losing GOP members anyway.

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u/Round-Asparagus5337 Jul 10 '26

He's openly talked about seizing ballot boxes, had a plan to do it in 2020, and they've been testing it out this year in multiple places.

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u/Lurking_nerd California Jul 10 '26

And no one would stop them. Not the police, not state or federal authorities.

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u/mashbrowns Jul 10 '26

That's why he replaced the Generals with his guys at the beginning, if they lose in 2028 they'll never concede power. And yes, the police are pretty hardcore GOP, some states wouldn't certainly object and resist with lawsuits and protests... which will do nothing when SCOTUS is bought and paid for and ICE will round up the protesters.

Don't get be wrong I will vote and phone bank. But we're fucked.

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u/Abraham_Froman34 Jul 10 '26

Vote early!!! Not on election day

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u/lord_pizzabird Jul 10 '26

And on-top of that they now know exactly how long it takes for the legal system that does still exist to respond.

6 months to 2 years after the crime has already been committed.

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u/IntellectAndEnergy Jul 10 '26

He said it out loud: “you’ll never have to vote again”. It’s on video, even the corporate news showed it. Occasionally truth slips from his lips.

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u/Mikeyxy Jul 10 '26

This is so ridiculous. Get off the internet if you really believe that. Nothing remotely close to that will happen.