By Peter Brown
President Trump has stated that the National Guard will be deployed to Washington, D.C., to address what he describes as a critical “crime wave” in the capital. He claims the city has been:
“… taken over by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals” as well as “drugged out maniacs and homeless people.”
But the numbers tell another story: violent crime in D.C. is falling, not rising. The crisis he describes exists more in political rhetoric than in police reports.
And that is precisely why this moment matters.
Manufacturing a public emergency, then using it to justify a show of military force, is a textbook authoritarian tactic. It shifts the narrative from “here’s what the law says” to “here’s what I decide.” In bypassing the elected D.C. mayor and council, Trump is not simply responding to crime – he is overriding the very principle of local self-rule. The Home Rule Act, which grants Washingtonians the right to govern themselves, is being treated as an inconvenience to be brushed aside.
This is not an isolated decision. From threatening to “take over” Democratic-run cities, to deploying federal forces against protesters in Portland and Los Angeles, to musing about rejecting election results, Trump has shown a consistent readiness to bend democratic norms for political gain. Each time it happens, it becomes easier to justify the next time – and harder to remember the line that was crossed.
Bringing armed troops into a city in peacetime is not “liberation,” as Trump called it. It is a rehearsal. It normalises the idea that the military is a tool for settling domestic political scores. Today, it is the capital. Tomorrow, it could be any city that votes the wrong way or refuses to obey.
America’s founders feared exactly this: power concentrated in one man’s hands, justified by the language of safety and order. The republic will not fall in a single day – it will erode, action by action, until people no longer notice the difference between law and decree.
The capital may not be in the grip of a crime wave, but the country is in the early stages of something far more dangerous: the slow, deliberate drift toward authoritarian rule.
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Well, you guys voted him in!
President Jibbering-Chimp is becoming a criminal manipulator, an embarrassment to his nation, the whole world, to civilised living. Filth floats, fascism flies, force frightens, foul play flourishes, and this ignorant oaf has a team of shortsighted greedite grabbers enlisted. The removal of Trump by any means soon is vital. Every day brings shame.
Project 2025 proceeds to crush everything in it’s path, with an easily manipulated lunatic at the helm.Reminds me of that old Pink Floyd song..Brain Damage.
Every country on the planet that values it’s freedom, must distance itself from this self destructing horror show,and that most definitely means us, Albo.Better find that backbone,and soon.
No more spurious waffling.
Trump is not clever enough to devise all these executive orders himself so obviously he’s being manipulated. Apparently even if the Democrats win the midterms they won’t be able to stop him continuing to use Executive Orders to slowly strangle the democracy. There doesn’t appear to be any guarantee anymore that even if the Democrats had the numbers and the cojones to impeach him the Supreme Court would let it happen. Or have I got it wrong?
RC:
The main powers pushing this are Stephen Miller, Peter Thiel and Russel Vought. The guardrails have already been dismantled (ie: corruption of the majority of SCOTUS).
Civil War may be unavoidable; it depends on the level of resistance in certain Democratic states.
The beginning of the march towards martial law, suspension of elections and DT declaring himself POTUS for life.
It’s too late to stop it now
Let’s face it Americans take themselves far too seriously, and have been the major cause world-wide for the loss of humour & irony. They seem to be fonder of arming themselves with weapons to fend off the ‘others’.
Their elected Punch-like boring accordion-player-in-chief knows nothing but bashing and fueling the flames of drama and mythological end-of-times. He just loves going birko, in fact he knows no other way – just another executive order – wallop.
Soon America will tire of “He’s behind you now!”, “Oh, no he isn’t!”, “Oh, yes he is!” And they’ll pull down the whole show, leaving only a diminished Holywood to misguide them as they try to extinguish the flames of their own demise. Yet again.
The T-Rump regime seems to forget that shit splatters, and the more the mad accordion player gets about with his stick and turds, the more they’ll be swamped by it.