"...control of media, communications, finance and surveillance."

Gasp! what about that free press and privacy we ordered the USG not to transgress in the document that grants it the privilege of serving as our means of self governance?

Yeah, that's all actually not lawful in the USA.

"...it’s hard to see how fragmented civilian armies could mount any serious challenge to the state."

You'd be quite shocked how quickly a few veterans can cobble some up. As I stated, the USG used to war game rebellions regularly, and never once won against civilians. US servicemen are volunteers, and swear an oath to defend the people, and the Constitution, not government agencies and corrupt bureaucrats, and most of them know the difference. Also, they have families, and if the USG is attacking civilians with military force, their families, mothers, brothers, wives, and daughters are in the crosshairs.

It's hard to understand how half of them don't join the rebellion.

"Are they going to bite the hand that feeds..."

Many will not. But folks that will put up with tyranny for ~$200 a month in food stamps aren't worth much to folks with merit, and most would meet Yuval Hariri's description of 'useless eaters'. They're neither going to rebel, nor oppose them that do, so I don't think they matter much either way. When armed civilians outnumber soldiers >100:1, any egregious tyrannical oppression isn't likely to be long tolerated, and soldiers ordered to illegally wage war on the civilian population they've sworn to protect, that they joined the service to protect, are naturally going to be conflicted, and some will be outright rebellious about such orders. They're being ordered to stop being the heroes they signed up to be, and become the villains they signed up to fight against. Most people really depend for their self esteem on a (often false) sense of being virtuous. Shooting at crowds of civilians is what bad guys do, and everybody knows it.

I don't think it's a leap of faith to expect soldiers to be extremely hesitant to shoot into crowds that could contain their mothers, sisters, and daughters. Maybe even to prefer to shoot at the assholes giving those illegal orders to commit war crimes. There were a lot of officers shot over in Vietnam. Such development isn't unpredictable, nor unprecedented.