Donald Trump and maga Republicans support fascist military takeover of Washington DC but on January 6 Trump watched TV did nothing
Crime data doesn’t justify Trump’s extreme action in Washington
The District of Columbia depicted on the news in recent days bears little resemblance to the city a few hours up the road from Hampton Roads. To hear Donald Trump and members of his administration describe it, Washington ranks among the most dangerous places in the United States, if not the world.
Nothing could be further from the truth. While the District has its share of big-city problems, violent crime reached a 30-year low in 2024 — progress that should be celebrated, especially by the federal officials who live and work there.
Instead, Trump convinced himself of a fiction, wholly detached from reality, that the city must be brought to heel in the interest of public safety. His move to federalize local police and deploy the National Guard is a solution in search of a problem and another dangerous overreach from this administration.
For someone who has lived five of the last nine years in the nation’s capital, Trump is arguably the District’s most dissatisfied resident. He has repeatedly used the city as a punching bag, portraying it as a crime-infested hellhole rather than the magnificent, if flawed, community that residents and visitors know it to be.
Those attacks accelerated last week after a staffer from the Department of Government Efficiency was the victim of violence in an attempted carjacking Aug. 3. The 19-year-old software engineer was beaten by a group of assailants, prompting Trump to claim Washington “has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world.”
In doing so, Trump made a generalization based on personal experience rather than anything grounded in hard data. Incidents of violent crime are tragic and victims deserve sympathy and support, but the simple fact is that D.C. is safer than it has been in years.
Not that Trump cares. Over the weekend, the Department of Justice — which in January trumpeted that violent crime in Washington was the lowest in 30 years — mobilized patrols of FBI agents and other federal law enforcement. And on Monday, Trump put the Metropolitan Police under federal authority and ordered the deployment of 800 National Guard troops to the capital.
This comes only months after the president ordered 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in the face of mild protests against his inhumane and imprecise immigrant deportation scheme. Those actions have been challenged in federal court, with a three-day trial that began on Monday.
Closer to home, Governor Glenn Youngkin, who presumably has been to the federal district just across the Potomac and can read crime statistics, cheered Trump on. Following Trump's announcement, Virginia’s chief executive posted on social media that “it’s a bad day for criminals in D.C.” and celebrated Trump “taking action to protect people in our nation’s capital.”
Again, Washington is the safest it’s been for years — which is good news for Virginia❗And Youngkin apparently has no reservations about a massive show of federal power under the president’s fictitious guise of necessity.
There was a time for Trump to deploy the National Guard to the federal city: January 6. 2021. As the president’s supporters rampaged through the U.S. Capitol, attacking police officers and threatening to kill members of Congress, Trump sat idly in the White House watching events unfold on his television.
He did not act. He did not decry the brutal assaults against law enforcement. Worse, he pardoned hundreds of those violent rioters once he returned to office. His arguments that Washington now needs his help, years after he turned his back on the lawlessness right in front of him, couldn’t ring more hollow.
If Trump is truly concerned about public safety in Washington DC, he should urge his fellow Republicans in Congress to fix the $1.1 billion hole they blew in the city’s budget with their stopgap spending bill in March. That would make a real difference in Washington. Naturally, Trump couldn’t care less.
Echo opinion published in the Virginian-Pilot newspaper Editorial
Nothing could be further from the truth. While the District has its share of big-city problems, violent crime reached a 30-year low in 2024 — progress that should be celebrated, especially by the federal officials who live and work there.
Instead, Trump convinced himself of a fiction, wholly detached from reality, that the city must be brought to heel in the interest of public safety. His move to federalize local police and deploy the National Guard is a solution in search of a problem and another dangerous overreach from this administration.
For someone who has lived five of the last nine years in the nation’s capital, Trump is arguably the District’s most dissatisfied resident. He has repeatedly used the city as a punching bag, portraying it as a crime-infested hellhole rather than the magnificent, if flawed, community that residents and visitors know it to be.
Those attacks accelerated last week after a staffer from the Department of Government Efficiency was the victim of violence in an attempted carjacking Aug. 3. The 19-year-old software engineer was beaten by a group of assailants, prompting Trump to claim Washington “has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world.”
In doing so, Trump made a generalization based on personal experience rather than anything grounded in hard data. Incidents of violent crime are tragic and victims deserve sympathy and support, but the simple fact is that D.C. is safer than it has been in years.
Not that Trump cares. Over the weekend, the Department of Justice — which in January trumpeted that violent crime in Washington was the lowest in 30 years — mobilized patrols of FBI agents and other federal law enforcement. And on Monday, Trump put the Metropolitan Police under federal authority and ordered the deployment of 800 National Guard troops to the capital.
This comes only months after the president ordered 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles in the face of mild protests against his inhumane and imprecise immigrant deportation scheme. Those actions have been challenged in federal court, with a three-day trial that began on Monday.
Closer to home, Governor Glenn Youngkin, who presumably has been to the federal district just across the Potomac and can read crime statistics, cheered Trump on. Following Trump's announcement, Virginia’s chief executive posted on social media that “it’s a bad day for criminals in D.C.” and celebrated Trump “taking action to protect people in our nation’s capital.”
Again, Washington is the safest it’s been for years — which is good news for Virginia❗And Youngkin apparently has no reservations about a massive show of federal power under the president’s fictitious guise of necessity.
There was a time for Trump to deploy the National Guard to the federal city: January 6. 2021. As the president’s supporters rampaged through the U.S. Capitol, attacking police officers and threatening to kill members of Congress, Trump sat idly in the White House watching events unfold on his television.
He did not act. He did not decry the brutal assaults against law enforcement. Worse, he pardoned hundreds of those violent rioters once he returned to office. His arguments that Washington now needs his help, years after he turned his back on the lawlessness right in front of him, couldn’t ring more hollow.
If Trump is truly concerned about public safety in Washington DC, he should urge his fellow Republicans in Congress to fix the $1.1 billion hole they blew in the city’s budget with their stopgap spending bill in March. That would make a real difference in Washington. Naturally, Trump couldn’t care less.
Labels: Governor Glenn Youngkin, Los Angeles, The Virginian-Pilot
posted by Juliana L'Heureux | 11:53 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home