United States President Donald Trump justified the deployment of 2000 National Guard troops to Washington DC by claiming that the US capital “has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people.”
But when Trump singles out “wild youth” he means Black youth. By “high crime areas” he means Black communities.
While hundreds of people have been detained since the National Guard deployment, Trump’s claims of a "law and order emergency" are false, as DC’s violent crime rate is at a 30-year low, down 26%.
Under his Executive Order, Trump put the city’s police under federal control and sent in 500 federal law enforcement officials, including FBI agents, deputy marshals and agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Some agents patrol the city and others are visible in so-called “high crime” or high traffic areas.
On the first night of their deployment they picked up 23 residents.
Trump described his deployment as part of a broader effort to “liberate” the city and make it “great again”.
Visiting the deployment on August 22, Trump claimed he "straightened out crime in four days in DC" and said: "It's working unbelievably, much faster than we thought. We've arrested hundreds of criminals, hardline criminals, people that will never be any good."
Trump says this will be the first of many cities where troops could be deployed, mentioning Memphis, Chicago, New York, Baltimore and Oakland, California as potential targets.
Racist, authoritarian push
Under federal law, Trump’s action can only last 30 days without Congress approval. However, Trump has threatened to declare a national emergency to extend the military occupation of Washington DC if Congress does not extend it.
Unsurprisingly, every city Trump is targeting has an elected Black mayor and a large African American community. He aims to eliminate Black elected officials and his gerrymander in Texas is aimed at doing just that.
Washington has been governed by Black politicians for decades. Once known as “Chocolate City”, 43% of residents are Black or African American, 39% are white, 4% are Asian, 0.3% are US and Alaskan First Nations and the rest are Native Hawaiians and others.
Washington DC Mayor, Muriel Bowser, and other local officials hadn’t been told of the takeover until they watched Trump announce it on television. It has led to confusion over who commands the police, how policing policies will change, and how federal agents, who are not trained for community policing, interact with local officers.
Speaking during an August 13 “Town Hall” meeting on social media, Bowser urged community members to “protect our city, to protect our autonomy, to protect our home rule and get to the other side of this guy and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push”.
“We are not 700,000 scumbags and punks,” she added.
“We don’t have neighborhoods that should be bulldozed. We must be clear about our story, who we are and what we want for our city.”
The 1973 District of Columbia Home Rule Act enables the people of Washington DC to elect their own mayor and council. But Congress retains authority over the city’s budget and has final approval on all legislation passed by the DC Council, according to the Smithsonian Magazine.
The question of self-rule in the nation’s capital stretches back to the city’s establishment in 1790.
However, this is the first time a president has used Section 740 of the Home Rule Act to conduct a federal takeover of Washington DC’s metro police.
Democratic Party mayors across the country responded to the deployment by warning Trump against expanding his law-and-order power grab to other major cities.
Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson said: “Sending in the national guard would only serve to destabilise our city and undermine our public safety efforts.”
Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott said: “When it comes to public safety in Baltimore, [Trump] should turn off the right-wing propaganda and look at the facts. Baltimore is the safest it’s been in over 50 years.”
Barbara Lee, the former longtime African American Congresswoman and newly elected mayor of Oakland, wrote on X that Trump’s characterisation of Oakland “is wrong and based in fear mongering in an attempt to score cheap political points”.
White House deputy chief of staff, and well-known white supremacist, Stephen Miller stepped up the rhetoric on August 11, posting on X: “Crime stats in big blue [Democrat-led] cities are fake. The real rates of crime, chaos & dysfunction are higher orders of magnitude.
“Everyone who lives in these areas knows this. They program their entire lives around it. Democrats are trying to unravel civilization. President Trump will save it.”
What next?
Critics call Trump’s move a “brazen power grab” and legal experts are debating whether his actions violate the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts military involvement in civilian law enforcement.
Trump is, in effect, functioning as chief of the city, despite what local leaders say.
California’s governor Gavin Newsom challenged Trump’s deployment of troops to Los Angeles in June, arguing it violated the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution and federal law. A San Francisco federal court is now hearing the case.
The DC situation is unique because the city lacks statehood, making it more vulnerable to federal intervention.
So far Trump has attacked judges and says the executive branch has the right to do anything the president wants, on national security grounds.
This growing pattern of federal override could permanently reshape the balance of power between the presidency and Congress and the courts.
Trump’s executive order sets a dangerous precedent and is another step toward authoritarianism. It will embolden future presidents to bypass local governance in other cities and states.
Trump is a white supremacist and nationalist. He seeks a return to a time when Blacks and other oppressed minorities and women were subordinated, with fewer rights. That’s his meaning of "Make America Great Again". His attack on diversity, equity and inclusion is aimed at wiping out all representations of Blacks and all racial minorities.
When Trump promotes so-called “patriotic education” through his 1776 Commission to end what he calls the “radicalized view of American history”, he wants no mention of the slaughter of First Nations peoples, the enslavement of Blacks and dehumanisation of non-whites in schools, universities, or museums.
Grassroots organising
To fight Trump’s authoritarian drive, we cannot rely on the Democratic Party. We need organised, nonviolent, mass protest, including the use of civil disobedience.
After Trump sent in the National Guard to Los Angeles, community groups, led by immigrant rights activists, started to organise a fight back — and continue to do so.
They are using varied tactics, such as confronting masked ICE agents, videoing them and using lawyers to help immigrants and supporters arrested or taken into detention.
They are not relying on the Democratic Party establishment or elected officials.
African Americans understand how to do this better than any other segment of the population. It took the mass civil rights movement years of protests to win the right to vote.
In response to Trump’s deployment, one Washington DC protester near the White House held a sign saying: “No Trump GESTAPO”. Clearly, the stakes are high.
The Los Angeles example of resistance must be followed everywhere.