I’m on a little break (as is Tom, which you can see below, LOL…) so I missed the fact that it was an assault on infamous DOGE staffer “Big Balls” that precipitated Trump’s militarization order of Washington DC. Doesn’t that just figure.
Not that this is unprecedented. After all, Trump militarized Los Angeles in June and the country shrugged. Here’s Bill Kristol, unreconstructed cold warrior, observing that his worst fears are coming true:
It’s a familiar headline for Americans of my generation: “Authoritarian Government Uses Pretext to Take Control of Police Force in Nation’s Capital.” The dateline could be Belgrade or Bangkok, Caracas or Cairo. We’d read the stories, shake our heads, and reflect on the fragility of democracy in the Third World. We might have taken a moment to think: “It can’t happen here.” But the truth is that the possibility of it happening here seemed so remote that the thought barely came to mind in the first place.
We did, of course, know that it had happened in counties more like us in the first half of the last century, in European capitals like Rome and Berlin and Madrid, and Prague and Budapest and Warsaw. But that was a long time ago. That couldn’t happen here. It couldn’t happen now.
And then, yesterday, the president of the United States announced the following:
Under the authorities vested in me as the president of the United States, I’m officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, and placing the DC Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control. . . . In addition, I’m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order, and public safety in Washington DC, and they’re going to be allowed to do their job properly.
The president claimed an emergency existed in the District of Columbia even though crime is down a lot over the last two years—and especially over the last two decades. He announced it even though other cities in the United States have higher rates of violent crime. A failed carjacking incident at 3:00 a.m. one night a week ago—an incident that, it must be noted, was stopped by the D.C. police and that resulted in the arrest of two of the perpetrators—was the pretext for the president’s actions. It also must be noted that it’s unclear what the legitimate “federal purpose” of the president’s action is, which is what the statute requires.
I heard Joe Scarborough go on and on and on this morning about how the Democrats have to take this seriously and come up with some (assuredly draconian) solutions because people don’t “feel” safe. In other words, “vibes.”
This is how we got here. The right ginned up the vibes about inflation, the media pimped it hard and people began to “feel” it. Here we go again. Whether it’s caravans coming for the border, inflation or crime, this is patented Trump bullshit which the media fall for every single time.
Trump has wanted a militarized federal takeover of American cities for decades. Just look at that op-ed at the top from 1987. Now it’s YOLO and he’s going for it.