The Perils and Absurdities of Mayor Trump’s DC Occupation

Trump says from the safety of the freshly paved over Rose Garden, where his UFC ring will likely go, that we have “caravans of youth rampaging through city streets at all times of the day.” (Note the use of “caravan,” a descriptor usually saved for immigrants trying to cross the border. It’s Klan Mad Libs.)

Please listen to me: I am out here every day, and there are no “caravans of youth” looking to carjack Oklahoma senators with manhood issues. Instead, Trump is trying to nationalize what he did to the Central Park 5 and, just like with the Central Park 5, it’s a divisive lie. This is one more Big Lie, facilitated by Fox News, that Trump’s supporters need to believe. They crave for Trump to be their white knight, which is why he is desperate that they not reckon with his time on Epstein’s island. Trump needs to distract them, and he needs to suppress democratic revolt against a failing, increasingly unpopular agenda—and this move does both.

This is not about street crime. This is about the president’s public desire to militarily occupy cities in states with Democratic governors, put a final stake in the heart of democratic norms, and, most critically, do it all on fictitious terms. The key is to make people accept the lies so they become complicit. Crime-rate drops are irrelevant. Murder rates in red states are irrelevant. When you choose to believe the lie, then you find yourself defending it. When you defend it, you become a part of the harm it does. Trump getting people to believe what is untrue is the political version of getting more prints on the handle of a gun.

DC is the perfect testing ground for this coup, because it doesn’t have statehood and only limited home rule. As longtime DC civil rights leader the Rev. Graylan Hagler told me, “We were already occupied by law enforcement making DC one of the most police occupied cities in the country with Capitol police, park police, transportation police, the FBI, the DEA, and the list goes on and many of those agencies additionally having separate police departments of their own. Only the MPD [The Metropolitan Police Department] was under local control, and that no longer exists. With the National Guard on the streets and all local empowerment gone, we are a city and people living under martial law.” [MORE]