With one announcement, Donald Trump has successfully declared battle on the nation’s capital. On Sunday, he primed his viewers for a spectacle, casting Washington, D.C., as “one of the harmful cities anyplace on the planet.”
By Monday morning, the theater had escalated.
His voice heavy with the theatrical menace he’s perfected over years of political showmanship, Trump warned in a White Home press convention: “We’re right here for a really severe goal. Very severe, very. One thing’s uncontrolled. However we’re going to place it in management in a short time, like we did on the southern border. I’m saying a historic motion to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor. And worse… that is Liberation Day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital again.”
However “management” on the border has meant razor wire and useless our bodies within the desert. It has meant households ripped aside, pregnant girls shackled in detention, and lawful residents harassed as a result of their pores and skin was the mistaken shade. In California, his immigration raids have turned workplaces into searching grounds and neighborhoods into occupied zones, snatching up fathers on their method to work and moms in parking tons whereas Fox Information cheers.
Now, he guarantees to convey that very same playbook to the streets of D.C.
Trump vowed to declare a public security emergency and put Lawyer Common Pam Bondi in direct command of the Metropolitan Police Division “efficient instantly.” He promised a safety surge so sweeping that “if you stroll down the road, you’re going to see police otherwise you’re going to see FBI brokers… primarily the navy. And we are going to convey within the navy if it’s wanted.”
I need y’all to image this: snipers on roofs, tanks idling outdoors nook shops and Metro stations, armored automobiles hemming in metropolis blocks, troops with rifles standing the place youngsters watch for the bus, surveillance drones overhead. This isn’t crime prevention; it’s conquest theater, and calling it “Liberation Day” doesn’t change the truth that what he’s promoting isn’t security. It’s occupation.
Most main information retailers are treating this as a political spat between Trump and D.C.’s mayor or as a law-and-order coverage debate. They’re underreporting the racialized focusing on, the civil liberties erosion, and the truth that this sort of federal overreach is strictly what authoritarian regimes do earlier than elections.
So, let’s be clear, what’s driving Trump’s push to “take over” D.C. policing with federal troops isn’t actually about crime statistics. It’s about optics and the lengthy recreation of white nationalist authoritarianism.
On paper, the justification is “restoring order” in a supposedly crime-ridden capital. However the actuality is, the numbers don’t again him up. Cime in D.C. is down sharply this yr, and Justice Division knowledge exhibits town’s crime price has fallen to a 30-year low.
That disconnect tells you this isn’t a data-driven regulation enforcement intervention. It’s a political stunt engineered to offer his base the optics of “taking again” a majority-Black metropolis led by a Black feminine mayor. That is straight out of MAGA’s law-and-order playbook. He’s staging a visible drama with armored automobiles, troops in fatigues, and checkpoints whereas projecting himself as the person who tamed the “Democrat-run city jungle.”
D.C. doesn’t have statehood, which implies Congress and the President have already got outsized management over it. Deploying federal troops to overrule native regulation enforcement is straight from the authoritarian playbook. First, strip a group of its potential to control itself. Then impose outdoors rule below the body of “restoring order.”
Make no mistake: the sign to the remainder of America is chilling: your native authorities exists solely on the pleasure of the federal authorities.
If Trump can seize policing in D.C., he can test-drive the precedent for overriding native governance anyplace, particularly in cities that defy him politically. And the selection of D.C. is just not an accident.
As a majority-Black metropolis with a Black mayor, it’s an ideal proving floor for a method that has all the time positioned Black communities on the middle of state energy’s most aggressive experiments in management. From Reconstruction to Jim Crow to COINTELPRO, America has all the time rehearsed and perfected its most aggressive instruments of management on Black populations earlier than turning these techniques on everybody else.
That is additionally about strangling dissent earlier than it ever takes form. That’s as a result of D.C. is the primary and loudest stage for protests in opposition to Trump. Embedding federal troops into town’s policing equipment provides him the muscle to choke off demonstrations earlier than they swell, designate protest zones removed from energy facilities, and preemptively arrest protest organizers. As protest zones get rebranded as militarized “crime scenes,” drones and facial recognition tech might be deployed to determine, observe, and deter future protest participation.
As soon as once more, none of that is about public security, however moderately a preemptive suppression wrapped within the language of regulation and order.
And when these protests are crushed below the banner of safety, the impression gained’t be unfold evenly throughout town. It can fall heaviest on the identical communities which have all the time borne the brunt of over-policing. That’s the half the press retains glossing over. Most mainstream retailers preserve quoting crime stats and political spats, however they gained’t say that this sort of militarization virtually all the time lands hardest in Black neighborhoods.
And all of this serves one other goal. Trump’s home agenda is in shambles. Tariffs are gutting elements of the economic system. Authorized hassle is closing in. He’s meddling in universities and media and catching hell for it. Immigration raids are drawing worldwide condemnation. And meals and housing prices are skyrocketing. And so, by manufacturing a “crime disaster” in D.C., he provides himself a made-for-TV battle zone. It’s a distraction play, a media spectacle to drown out failure and recast himself as a wartime president. Solely this battle is being waged on American streets in opposition to Americans.
Anticipate amped-up profiling in Black areas, “crime suppression” sweeps that appear like occupation, and a chilling impact on political dissent. The violence gained’t be measured in murder stats. It’ll be measured in how a lot each day life for D.C.’s Black residents is disrupted, surveilled, and criminalized and bought to the general public as “regulation and order.” And if Trump follows the federalized policing playbook utilized in Ferguson (post-2014), Portland (2020), and New Orleans (post-Katrina), this time scaled up for max political theater, the outcomes might be much more aggressive and enduring.
Right here’s what’s about to occur:
Even with crime down in D.C., count on to maintain listening to the fixed repetition of “crime wave,” “lawless streets,” and cherry-picked violent incidents. A single high-profile crime in D.C. will get outsized media protection, magnified by Fox Information and MAGA influencers. This primes the general public to see troop deployment as inevitable and “essential.”
Trump will lean on D.C.’s lack of statehood to bypass native management. Anticipate government orders or DOJ directives that shift operational authority from the Metropolitan Police Division to a federal chain of command, both the Division of Justice or the Division of Homeland Safety. D.C.’s mayor might be sidelined, and native leaders could have little say in deployment priorities.
The visuals would be the level: armored automobiles on Pennsylvania Avenue, federal brokers in tactical gear guarding Metro stations, and military-style checkpoints in neighborhoods. Suppose extra about optics than tactical necessity. That is about constructing a “Trump Saved D.C.” narrative for his marketing campaign and historic branding.
Federal forces usually convey looser guidelines of engagement than native police, so count on to see expanded stop-and-frisk and “zero-tolerance” enforcement in Black neighborhoods. Federal commanders will designate “excessive crime” zones, virtually actually east of the Anacostia River, particularly in Wards 7 and eight. There might be road sweeps focusing on younger Black males for minor infractions (open container, loitering, seatbelt violations) below the banner of gang suppression. On high of that, aggressive site visitors stops for minor violations to fish for warrants, weapons, or medication. And perhaps even door-to-door “knock-and-talk” sweeps framed as group outreach however functionally about surveillance. Traditionally, this floods native courts with low-level instances and worsens group mistrust.
With all these techniques comes info management.
Federal companies will management press entry, stage “ride-alongs” with pleasant media retailers, and withhold knowledge that would present racial bias in stops and arrests. As a substitute, they’ll cherry-pick success tales (weapons seized, medication discovered) to justify the occupation. Add to that, authorized immunity and lack of accountability since federal officers are tougher to prosecute for misconduct than native police. Civilian oversight boards gained’t have jurisdiction. Residents will discover it practically not possible to get transparency on use-of-force incidents, misconduct complaints, and even the true scope of surveillance.
As soon as troops are in place, they hardly ever depart rapidly. The mission will inevitably develop to incorporate federal property safety, “counterterrorism,” or “gang suppression” till the presence turns into normalized. The actual long-term aim is to make this stage of federal management really feel everlasting and unremarkable.
What’s unfolding in D.C. isn’t nearly “restoring order.” It’s a costume rehearsal for a broader, extra everlasting transformation of American governance. It’s one the place the president’s grip on native policing turns into normalized, the place dissent is choked off earlier than it might breathe, and the place the equipment of state energy might be turned on any group that dares to withstand.
And, as all the time, Black America is the stage on which this new order is examined. The identical neighborhoods east of the Anacostia that might be flooded with federal brokers are the proving grounds for techniques that can ultimately spill past D.C.’s borders into cities, campuses, workplaces, and voting precincts throughout the nation.
Trump’s technique is layered: militarize below the banner of security, distract from home failures with a made-for-TV disaster, situation the general public to just accept the suspension of native management, and cement new precedents. It’s border coverage imported to the capital; protest suppression disguised as regulation enforcement; racial management recast as nationwide safety.
On this script, Black our bodies stay the default testing floor for America’s most aggressive experiments in domination. And as soon as the curtain falls on “Liberation Day,” the set will nonetheless be standing. The troops might rotate, the uniforms might change, however the structure of occupation will stay in place, prepared for the subsequent act.
As a result of the true aim isn’t simply to regulate D.C. in 2025. It’s to lock in an structure of management that can outlive the person himself, prepared for use by whoever comes subsequent.
Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and writer of “Spare The Youngsters: Why Whupping Kids Gained’t Save Black America” and the forthcoming “Strung Up: The Lynching of Black Kids In Jim Crow America.” Learn her Substack right here.
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