“… Nothing about these deployments suggests that they will durably solve any of the real problems. The Guard isn’t trained for routine police work. The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration whom Trump
tried to install atop the Metropolitan Police Department has no experience in municipal policing.
The Washington Post’s mapping shows that federal officers are mostly not in the district’s highest-crime neighborhoods.
Immigration arrestsare, however, up sharply.
… Legally, Trump has control over the D.C. National Guard, and he also has the power to temporarily take over D.C. policing in a declared emergency (even if he hasn’t actually identified any such circumstance). The addition of Guard troops from elsewhere is curious because, as the
journalist Philip Bump reports, they come from states with cities more dangerous than D.C. Jackson, Mississippi, has the
highest murder rate in the nation,
compared with cities of the same size or larger.
But the troops also come from states with Republican governors, making them into a force whose leaders are presumably more politically loyal to the president. The
Associated Press delicately noted, “It’s unclear why additional troops are needed.”
… What’s happening doesn’t look like a carefully regimented and organized attempt at standing up a military dictatorship. Trump seldom acts with that sort of discipline. Instead, it looks like an improvisational and opportunistic grab of power—Trump seeing what he can get away with and what he can normalize.
With no stated goal, and with an acquiescent Congress and Supreme Court, the country could end up with the U.S. military occupying its major cities before most Americans realize what’s happening.…”
prospect.org
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