You really think the US government can bomb its own citizens with impunity and not completely destroy their own industrial base that makes bombing citizens possible? The US government would very quickly collapse.
Refineries and factories don't work without people and are exceedingly vulnerable to locals.
At the moment the government with 15% hardcore support is rounding up people on the streets en masse, violating decades of established practices, while harming industrial base that depend on work of those people. And somehow pretty much everyone peacefully goes along with it. Or get occasionally shot.
That is exactly the point. It's working because everyone is peacefully going along with it. They have the consent - or at least acquiescence - of the governed. That's why they have no issues.
It is, therefore, not remotely relevant to your post starting this whole thread off saying that the consent of the governed is irrelevant and all you need is tanks.
> They have the consent - or at least acquiescence - of the governed.
They don't have the consent. And all they needed to get acquiescence was a bunch of poorly trained goons with masks, weapons, suv-s and official mandate. Not a single tank was needed yet.
Consent is irrelevant.
The only saving grace is that actual people with tanks (ie military) might at some point say 'nah'. Which I think they did in case of Greenland. Simply because it was too weird for them as opposed to Venezuela and Iran.
And? Minnesota is under strike right now and Arizona's AG just told its citizens that they can legally shoot ICE if they don't properly identify themselves or have a warrant or legal cause to arrest them. Still 95% of the nation is operating as normal, but that isn't possible when people are being actively bombed.
You can't imagine 95% of the nation operating as normal when they see in the news that another armed domestic terrorist cell got bombed every few days while being told the country is safer now?
The US government has made it pretty clear that we're two countries. There's the USA, and "democratic-controlled cesspools". Dropping a bomb on Chicago isn't that nuts when you don't think of Chicago as part of your country.
Refineries and factories don't work without people and are exceedingly vulnerable to locals.