

Wouldn’t take the military, he can call on federal marshals, the FBI, the NSA, the CIA, and probably even some of the local police would be willing to become his dogs. He could also in theory deploy one states national guard into a different state although that’s a little shakier legal ground. That’s assuming of course that the local officials would refuse to appear in court or a congressional summons voluntarily. There’s also other ways of exerting pressure like refusing to issue federal funds (although that’s far less effective against Democrat states since they contribute more federal funds than they receive, particularly California).
Part of the problem is the cold war propaganda was so laser focused on “communism bad” that much of why the USSR was bad was lost. The older generation still have a knee jerk reaction to the word communism that right wing media frequently exploits to generate a cheap emotional reaction by accusing any group they don’t like of being communist. Meanwhile the real horrors of the USSR are largely ignored lest people start drawing parallels with current events.