On Aug. 11, President Donald Trump signed the executive order ‘Declaring a Crime Emergency in the District of Columbia’. This order declared that Washington D.C. had been subject to ‘rampant violence’ and that crime in Washington is so bad that the city cannot maintain ‘public order and safety’.
None of this is true. The criticisms of Washington levied by the president are the nonsensical cries of a madman. Earlier this very year, Ed Martin, Trump’s failed pick for DC Attorney General, boasted about the safety of DC, ascribing a drop in crime to Donald Trump’s first 100 days.
The truth, plain and simple, is that the president is lashing out at discontent however he can, and the District is uniquely legally positioned to suffer from the imposition of a child’s law more than any other city in the United States, as it is ultimately under the purview of Congress, and as a result, the executive branch by fiat. The Home Rule Act provides the federal government with dictatorial powers over local voices.
Originally, I had written an article of length rigidly describing the steps and legal mechanisms through which the president had initiated these deployments, while in turn exacerbating city issues at every turn. However, while I was writing that article, new developments emerged from the House of Representatives: It had passed two bills, the DC Crimes Act, and the Juvenile Sentencing Reform Act. Both of these bills were put forward by Republicans, from Florida and Texas respectively, and serve to criminalize D.C.’s youth and sentence 14-year-olds as if they were full adults. The former restricts the DC government from changing its own sentencing laws and reduces the maximum age of a youth offender to 18, and the latter moves the age children can be tried as adults down to 14. I have decided thusly to skip talking about laws, regulations and violations of tradition implemented in D.C. as of late and instead react in terms of myself, as someone born in the city of Washington, within the District of Columbia.
The disgusting tyranny of the president and Congress should not be supported by anyone. The military is not law enforcement. It should not be deployed in law enforcement roles and it is an affront to the people of the District to pretend like it is. The president has deployed America’s armed forces to its capital, without the consent of the District, its people or its government, purely to instill fear in its people. The D.C. National Guard, along with multiple Republican states’ state guards, were sent into the nation’s capitol because of a Twitter government commandeering the Executive branch’s powers. This is the first time since President Dwight D. Eisenhower forcibly desegregated schools in Arkansas that a president has ordered the Guard to be deployed against the wishes of a governor.
It’s a politically motivated crackdown which threatens the District of Columbia’s independence and autonomy following a series of protests against the president but more than anything else, motivated by the coincidental assault of a DOGE staffer who goes by the preferred name of ‘Big Balls’ during a carjacking incident between 3 A.M. and 4 A.M. in the morning on Aug 3. ‘Big Balls’, whose most notable achievement to date was assisting in exposing 300 million Americans’ personal information to risk of security breaches and cybercrime, as recorded in whistleblower Chuck Borges’ complaint to Congress.
‘Big Balls’ is an incredible subject to find central to a cartoonishly authoritarian escapade which is entirely degrading to the image of America on an international scale. It is poetic in a sense that I could hardly imagine a series of incidents more emblematic of the Trump administration than a favored staffer of Musk being beaten up, the story going viral on Twitter and grabbing the attention of the President and within days there are deployments of troops within Washington whose primary occupation is to scare locals, stand around and assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement in harassing people if they look vaguely deportable enough.
It’s a disgusting performance of dictatorship where Stephen Miller, homeland security advisor, looks to get soundbytes and video of his personal SS, ICE, at work in minority areas and by the monuments harassing minorities to post on Twitter while real people try to go about their lives. It’s not hard to see why he would take such joy in deploying armed troops to a city particularly known for a large black population. It really can’t be overstated how much Stephen Miller wishes he could kill anyone he thinks of as non-white. According to former Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor, he’s wanted to simply drone strike migrants without due process, regardless of basic human rights, since at least the first Trump administration, an issue which has recently become topical. He’s one of the most disgustingly racist men alive and will be a permanent stain on the history of the federal government.
I mean, that still doesn’t quite reach the real reason, which is that the current GOP really wishes that if they deployed enough cops and beat enough people, they could get anyone in Washington to like them.
Brianne Nadeau is the representative of Ward 1 on D.C’s council and has seen her ward subject to a heavy federal presence.
“Some businesses aren’t even opening,” she said in an interview with CBS, “Either they don’t have staff coming or they’re concerned about opening for their customers. We have daycares that are afraid to take the kids out to the park because they’re afraid their staff will be picked up by ICE”.
A man named Moses, who runs a pizzeria in Anacostia told The Spectator on Sept 12, “The Guard seems to do a lot of random stops. When the Guard is here, I think people tell each other and they don’t go out.” Andre, a waiter there, said they had seen customers drop 25% that month. A wonderful crackdown on crime, for sure, one that is definitely doing anything but economic damage.
Trump’s takeover of police lapsed a few days ago, and he’s already back on the warpath. He’s declared that if law enforcement doesn’t comply with ICE, he will attempt to use his sway in Congress to revoke D.C’s home rule entirely and place it under the jurisdiction of the federal government. It’s a worthless position to debate the merits of and disgusting position of a toddler in the presidency being told he can’t play with his toys anymore. The D.C. police need to be allowed to do their actual jobs and do actual things which lower the crime rate instead of helping deport people. The Hill reported on a meeting between D.C. officials and the House Oversight committee last Thursday, where DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb gave the final word of the occupation’s efficacy; “Sending masked agents in unmarked cars to pick people up off the streets; flooding our neighborhoods with armed national guardsmen untrained in local policing; attempting a federal takeover of our police force, none of these are durable, lasting solutions for driving down crime.”
A government completely devoid of any moral character, ethical consideration or morality, set upon its own capital with the intent of provoking fear and silence. A government by and for the most deplorable Americans.
D.C. statehood now, GOP delenda est.
