There won’t be many (any?) regular citizens at the inauguration on Wednesday due to security and COVID risks, but there will be 25,000 armed guards. The fact that they’re giving the National Guardsmen live weapons and ammo seems…problematic. What’s to keep one or more of them from going full-jihadi and shooting attendees? Or the guests of honor?

Dave Winer over at Scripting News thought about this too. Here’s what he had to say.

I got an answer to a question I asked yesterday, about who 20K+ troops in DC will report to, until Biden is sworn in. By law they report to the commander-in-chief, President Trump. Just a fact. If Trump orders them to assassinate everyone at the inauguration, it’s not all that different from what Trump told the mob to do on January 6. So unfortunately it is in the realm of possibility.

It all hinges on who the troops are loyal to. Turns out the military thought of that, and pre-screened the soldiers assigned to this job to weed out white supremacists. I kid you not. They know how to do that? I guess it would be naive for them not to.

It’s a brave new world, and not a good one. At least not yet. Protecting political figures from its own citizens has always been a thing (…how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?), but the threat was previously a lone wolf gunman. Now it’s millions of brainwashed Trump cultists.