Trump to take over D.C. Law Enforcement

Who else is going to help them? Certainly not their elected officials for the last 50 years. Also a smart political move by trump to continue to grow support for republicans within the black community.
But how would this grow support for Republicans within the black community if this actual policing of crime is not taking place in black communities, but is instead taking place for show in places like Georgetown and around the national mall? How does this improve the crime rate in places like Anacostia? It’s not reducing poverty or providing resources and opportunity, which are among the absolute very best and demonstrably proven ways to reduce crime.

To me, if Republicans want to improve support from the black community, they should do exactly what the mayor of Baltimore has done to completely turn that city around. But what he has done isn’t to sic police officers on them to beat the hell out of them or to detain them and put them in jail. What he’s done is taking steps to reduce poverty by providing opportunity. If you want to improve Republican support in the black community, I think that would be a great way to start: by actually going into the black communities and instead of turning the police loose on them, provide them with food, provide them with education, provide them with meaningful outlets, provide them with alternatives to stealing and violence.

The problem is, that takes a heck of a lot more hard work and thankless work and it doesn’t really play well on Fox News or on social media because it’s monotonous, tedious, painstaking, boring work. But it’s effective.
 
This thread is the perfect encapsulation of what has disheartened me so much, ever since I left the Republican Party, about what conservatism has become to the vast majority of Republicans.

As someone who is *actually* conservative on what I think the scope and role of the federal government should be, it has been so dismaying for me seeing so many Republicans giddy about the sight of federal troops marching in American city streets and being used to harass and detain American citizens. I don’t care who you vote for, that’s something on which we should all agree- federal troops have no business policing the streets of American cities. None whatsoever. And certainly not at the behest of a singular politician to do his political bidding.

I am certain there are parts of Washington DC – just as there are parts of any city – where there is a significant safety issue because of crime. I am also certain that the parts of Washington DC that are being patrolled by federal troops are not the ones where there is a significant safety issue- unless you consider vendors selling $5 Dasani’s on the National Mall to be a safety issue. The way to combat crime is to give people an alternative to crime. Give them an alternative to poverty. Provide them with educational opportunities. Provide them with nutritious food. Provide them with the ability and resources to actually pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get themselves out of bad situations. The way to combat crime is not to do political kabuki theater by having federal troops marching down Constitution Ave and detaining people at traffic stops. How is that addressing crime in any meaningful way?

Are Republicans okay with the fact that the precedent has now been set such that the next time a Democratic president holds the Oval Office, he or she can send federal troops into the suburbs of Dallas and Atlanta and Birmingham and St. Louis and Jackson and and so on, whenever they want, to detain for no reason at all white overweight dingleberries with MAGA stickers on their pickup trucks?
you have to remember that a lot of the "conservatives" who support trump just call themselves that because they can't spell fascist.
 
But yes, I agree with the core tenant, “we have to get crime numbers down.” But it’s missing the point. It isn’t democrats or republicans that are +/- affecting the level of crime today, it’s cell phones. More time with cell phones means shutting yourself off from the world.

More time away from the world means fewer crimes committed. More time from the world also means higher levels of mental illness and drug use. Those are our core problems, and that will get worse, even if crime statistics continue to go down.

And neither party really has a great stance on those topics, but at least the democrat one is trying to offer up solutions, flawed as they may be.

Remember, in those “perfect” American times of the past, the ones MAGA longs for, “community” was a public experience that brought people into community spaces, albeit spaces that were often back-biting or exclusionary.

But they were public. Our children, and we, are leading much more private lives.

That’s why I love working in a school. I get this online community and some others, but I also get to interact with people from all over the world every day. I worked with a ELA class that spoke seven different languages las semester. (Thank god for chat gpt’s language translations). It’s the beauty of diversity… and immigration.

And it’s part of this country.

Often for “us,” not the “other.”

Let’s be honest, Trump doesn’t seem like a “stand up for the other” kind of guy.
 
This thread is the perfect encapsulation of what has disheartened me so much, ever since I left the Republican Party, about what conservatism has become to the vast majority of Republicans.

As someone who is *actually* conservative on what I think the scope and role of the federal government should be, it has been so dismaying for me seeing so many Republicans giddy about the sight of federal troops marching in American city streets and being used to harass and detain American citizens. I don’t care who you vote for, that’s something on which we should all agree- federal troops have no business policing the streets of American cities. None whatsoever. And certainly not at the behest of a singular politician to do his political bidding.

I am certain there are parts of Washington DC – just as there are parts of any city – where there is a significant safety issue because of crime. I am also certain that the parts of Washington DC that are being patrolled by federal troops are not the ones where there is a significant safety issue- unless you consider vendors selling $5 Dasani’s on the National Mall to be a safety issue. The way to combat crime is to give people an alternative to crime. Give them an alternative to poverty. Provide them with educational opportunities. Provide them with nutritious food. Provide them with the ability and resources to actually pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get themselves out of bad situations. The way to combat crime is not to do political kabuki theater by having federal troops marching down Constitution Ave and detaining people at traffic stops. How is that addressing crime in any meaningful way?

Are Republicans okay with the fact that the precedent has now been set such that the next time a Democratic president holds the Oval Office, he or she can send federal troops into the suburbs of Dallas and Atlanta and Birmingham and St. Louis and Jackson and and so on, whenever they want, to detain for no reason at all white overweight dingleberries with MAGA stickers on their pickup trucks?
I'm in partial agreement with you as to main point of your post. I disagree with the descriptive rhetoric in how it is portrayed and will be carried out. You are correct in how to long term combat crime. Where I think you miss the point is that left has had 50 years to accomplish those things you describe and has failed miserably. But every election you hear the same politicians spewing the same rhetoric. The problem is they never deliver because they don't know how. It blows my mind how blacks in major cities continue to vote for the same people who over promise and under deliver.

This is a smart play on trump's part. He can accomplish much by how he handles this.
1. He has an immediate positive impact on reducing crime over the next 6 to 12 months which benefits everyone
2. He further solidifies in the minds of voters that the left is soft on crime and that if you want a safe city vote republican
3. If he is successful the lessons learned can be applied to other cities similar to dc
 
I'm in partial agreement with you as to main point of your post. I disagree with the descriptive rhetoric in how it is portrayed and will be carried out. You are correct in how to long term combat crime. Where I think you miss the point is that left has had 50 years to accomplish those things you describe and has failed miserably. But every election you hear the same politicians spewing the same rhetoric. The problem is they never deliver because they don't know how. It blows my mind how blacks in major cities continue to vote for the same people who over promise and under deliver.

This is a smart play on trump's part. He can accomplish much by how he handles this.
1. He has an immediate positive impact on reducing crime over the next 6 to 12 months which benefits everyone
2. He further solidifies in the minds of voters that the left is soft on crime and that if you want a safe city vote republican
3. If he is successful the lessons learned can be applied to other cities similar to dc
You could note the steady decline in crime rate over those 50 years but you'd rather believe the lies. It's really not a good look for you.
 
Trump is acting under the authority given to the President under the DC Home Rule Act. Not a dictator. He must get Congressional approval after 30 days. I’m not understanding the hysteria.

Speaking of hysteria, the DC sandwich slinger has been identified as a DOJ attorney. Bondi just fired him.
 
Completely agree. My thing is that I am not reflexively opposed to everything that Donald Trump does because I don’t like Donald Trump or because I don’t like Republicans. It’s not that at all. I am reflexively opposed to everything that Donald Trump does because I would be reflexively opposed to anyone of any party concentrating so much power into the executive branch. We are setting a very, very dangerous precedent- and if Republicans think that only Republicans are going to occupy the White House for the rest of history, or that only Republicans would use such concentrated executive power for nefarious ends, they clearly have not paid too much attention in history classes. My reason for reflexively opposing everything that Trump does is because I want the United States to be better than all of the other countries we’ve read about throughout history that succumbed to a tyrannical executive.
Right. We always need to not only think about the present; we must always be thinking about “what comes next?”

I hate to be Dr. Strange in Endgame, but a lot of the positivefuture strands are burning out. It’s probably more than one good ending, but this this thing here and elsewhere, it’s not a lot of solutions. At least Paine brought that, even when I thought he was misguided.

Hey Paine, if you are reading this, we miss you!
 
Trump is acting under the authority given to the President under the DC Home Rule Act. Not a dictator. He must get Congressional approval after 30 days. I’m not understanding the hysteria.
Again, though, even if Trump is not that dictator after all, despite what some of his rhetoric may imply, this still opens the door for a future dictator, with similar, or even much more subdued, rhetoric than Trump, to become that dictator. Powers erode. They aren’t taken away all at once.
 
I remodeled a row hose across from Rock Creek Parkway area in the 90s. We'd go up a couple of weeks at a time and get enough done so the subs could come in and then come back and enclose and frame more. Never felt troublesome to me even though the crime rate was much higher then.
 
If you've never cursed at a motorcade for interrupting your commute, you should probably sit out offering opinions on what DC residents want and think.
1. I did that within the last week.
2. I don't see what that has to do with the topic of this discussion, which is the high-crime parts of DC, where no additional LEOs are being deployed.
 
Oh, and where are people going to go? Particularly the homeless. Prisons? The streets somewhere else? Suddenly built and staffed mental institutions? Florida Alcatraz? Other countries? Prisons/asylums in other countries? This isn’t a solution. It is a round-up. Not just people who commit crime, but the homeless.

There but by the grace of god go I.

And yes, language like “Unhoused” is stupid, but older generations often find the language of younger generations stupid. And through it all language keeps on evolving.
 


[dripping sarcasm] like what? [Reporter: terrorism] oh, really, terrorism? They’ll stop terrorism with what they’re doing right now. No. [talks about small number troops used and how thousands of DC police some good some bad weren’t allowed to do their jobs before this takeover] … You know it’s only two days but you look at the numbers already they’re dropping and uh No they’re not being pulled off anything.”
 
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