It's not about crime

In January, the Department of Justice announced that violent crime in DC reached a 30 year low.

It’s hard to watch troops in Washington, DC, without getting an uneasy feeling that we’re seeing a precursor to even more scary times. The whole rationale for the invasion is based on a false premise. Crime is not rampant and the crime rate is actually lower than it’s been in years. In January, before anyone could have imagined the scene we’re seeing today, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia released a report that led with the statement, “Total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35% from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years.”

Of course, in the alternative reality created by Fox News, Newsmax, talk radio, and various right-wing propaganda sites, our cities are dystopian hellscapes where criminals roam freely and residents huddle behind locked doors, too scared to venture from their homes. Those conservative audiences imagine New York of the 1970s. Of course, many have those people have never set foot in any of the major cities they fear.

The scariest places in America aren’t big cities, but small and midsized towns in the South and Heartland, hollowed out by bad trade deals and left behind by the emerging technology based economy. The three most dangerous places in North Carolina are Lumberton, Wadesboro, and Henderson, according to SafeHome.org. Trump is not sending troops to crack down on crime. He’s doing it to normalize usurping local political power and the sight of armed forces on the streets of our cities.

It’s a continuation of what he did in Los Angeles. The more he sends troops into cities, the more people shrug. More importantly, the soldiers get used to being deployed to take action against American citizens. It’s dangerous.

Conservatives who know better are cheering, making lame excuses about cracking down on crime. Less than a year ago, they were firmly against federalizing the National Guard. Back then, then-South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said we would “have a war on our hands” if Biden federalized the National Guard. Today, of course, she’s singing a different tune because modern Republicans have no deeply held principles, just deeply held fealty to whatever Trump says or does.

Trump is issuing executive orders to end mail-in voting and claiming “states are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in tabulating and counting votes.” In other words, he setting up a scenario where his administration will oversees elections nationally. I’m waiting for the wail of the states’ rights conservatives.

My fear is that Trump federalizes state elections and then sends in troops to enforce his orders. Or states are going to rig elections like the Republicans in North Carolina tried to do in the Supreme Court race in 2024 and Trump will send in the National Guard to put down protests. I don’t have any hope that either Congress or the Supreme Court would intervene.

Trump has successfully normalized abnormal and authoritarian behavior since he came down the golden escalator ten years ago. Conservatives like Lindsey Graham who said, “Trump doesn’t represent the values of my party” and Marco Rubio who called him a “con artist” have surrendered their principles and are accommodating Trump’s whims. The rank-and-file GOP has done the same. I couldn’t look face myself in the mirror every morning if I were them.

Troops in Las Angeles and Washington are probably just the rehearsal. Wait for them to show up in Raleigh or Columbus, OH, or Augusta, ME, in the wake of the 2026 election. See if anybody blinks then.