A question of priorities: why Washington got the guard while other cities buried their dead
In early August, President Trump ordered the National Guard into Washington, D.C., following the assault of a 19-year-old former DOGE employee. The attack – an attempted carjacking – was serious, but it resulted in no fatalities. Within hours, D.C. was swarming with Guardsmen, the President framing the deployment as a decisive response to “chaos in the capital.”
Yet across the country, multiple cities were reeling from far deadlier violence.
On July 28, a gunman stormed a Manhattan office tower housing the NFL’s headquarters, killing four people – including an off-duty NYPD officer – before taking his own life. It was New York’s deadliest shooting in 25 years.
On August 6, a shooting at Fort Stewart, Georgia, left five soldiers injured on an active-duty military base.
Two days later, in Atlanta, a heavily armed attacker fired more than 180 rounds into the Center for Disease Control’s CDC’s headquarters (allegedly as a protest against Covid vaccines), shattering 150 windows and killing a police officer before dying at the scene. The assault forced lockdowns across the campus and raised alarms over politically charged threats to public health institutions.
On August 11, Austin, Texas, saw a deadly parking-lot shooting that killed three people, including a 4-year-old child, before the suspect launched into a spree of additional crimes.
All of these incidents involved multiple deaths, public institutions, or national-security implications. None prompted a National Guard deployment.
The disparity is hard to ignore. Washington’s violent-crime rate is actually lower than it was in 2024, yet it was chosen for an extraordinary show of force. The capital’s symbolic role – and the political theatre it affords – cannot be discounted. A Guard presence in D.C. projects an image of a leader “taking action” in the seat of power, even if more urgent crises were unfolding elsewhere.
In the end, the decision raises an uncomfortable question: was the Guard sent to protect Americans, or to protect a political narrative?
Also by Michael Taylor:
Is Trump’s National Guard threat a racial dog whistle aiming to rig the mid-terms?
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I think we all know the answer to that question.
M Huckabee, mighty mouth, bony braincase, mental onanist, uncontrolled superstition drenched idiot, friend and supporter of filth, talks to us…Why should we all tolerate drivelling foreign loudmouth idiots hardly worth a fat rat’s rosy ring?
As Trump heads off for his meeting with Putin he has one ‘trump’ card which, if he plays it, will place Putin in a difficult position and should bring about an early ceasefire and a lasting peace.
NATO is the trump card, with thirty-two nations as current members. If Trump says that he will back NATO mebership for Ukraine it should all be over fairly quickly.
NATO’s Article 5, a core principle of the alliance, dictates that an attack against one member is considered an attack against all members. In such a case, all other NATO allies are obligated to assist the attacked member, potentially through various actions including the use of armed force. This principle of collective defence is a cornerstone of NATO’s security guarantee.
What do you reckon, will Trump play the NATO card ?
Of course he won’t, Terry. Putin will give the teensiest little tug on the leash and the Apricot Anusmouth will fall into line.
It’s a precursor to declaring a national emergency, martial law, and finally the suspension of elections and DT making himself POTUS for life. He has already emasculated the justice system, the Congress and any other check and balance he just ignores. Blue states may find themselves arming and taking control of their own people and hey – civil war.
Terry Mills
NATO has been pursuing a policy of hostile aggression against Russia for decades. The war being fought in Ukraine was deliberately engineered by the US and its NATO allies against Russia. NATO and its supporters like Australia have tried everything they could in their attempts to defeat Russia in accordance of the official US policy known as Extending Russia. This is a long term goal that has been prosecuted by Presidents Obama, Trump1, Biden and now Trump2. They expected Russia to be weakened by combined lethal military action, sanctions and economic collapse resulting in a rapid defeat so that Russia could be carved up and plundered for its resources. They have no qualms about the loss of life either in Russia nor in Ukraine which they were willing to completely sacrifice just so long as Russia was destroyed. Then they could safely turn their attention to another long term US policy known as Containing China, ie destroying China’s threat to US global supremacy, in which Australia is expected offer itself up for sacrifice in the same way as Ukraine and the EU.
However Russia has not been defeated despite everything that NATO has thrown at it. So now the US wants to freeze the conflict so they can pivot to China and resume the war against Russia at a later date. Europe is expected to maintain the aggression against Russia with weapons purchased from the US with money ripped off from their social welfare budgets while sending countless Europeans to their deaths as cannon fodder to replace the defeated and deceased Ukrainian troops. Every non US death is regarded by the US policy as worthwhile so long as it wears down the Russians defences just a little bit more.
NATO is not a trump card for Trump to play. Like Zelensky, Trump has no magic cards in his hand that will give him victory. He is just desperate for a ceasefire to prevent immanent Russian victory so that NATO can rebuild its depleted war effort and restart the war later. He is hoping Russia will fall for a Minsk 3 treaty that like its predecessors NATO has no intention of ever honouring.
The wild card that Trump might choose to play is nuclear escalation. Then it is game over for all players and spectators alike. Or he could wisely recognise Russia’s legitimate security concerns, respect the people of the Donbas’ wish to be part of the Russian Federation instead of being persecuted by the Kiev anti Russian neo-nazi regime and insist that Ukraine withdraws its troops from the Donbas and honours its constitutional obligation to be a neutral state with the withdrawal of NATO from its remaining territory.
I don’t know how Trump can insist on the de Nazification of Ukraine. That may be something the Russians will have to concede. Pressure can be put on Ukraine to protect the rights of Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine and protect them from Nazi persecution. But if the US is prepared to sponsor Israel’s genocide of innocent Palestinians it’s not likely that it will demonstrate much concern for innocent Russian speaking Ukrainians.
Those that look to excuse Putin’s neo fascist/neo colonialism/expansionism rarely fail to engage in anything beyond regurgitation of fact free Kremlin talking points.
Here’s some facts-
° regretably extreme right wing political parties are on the rise across Europe. This isn’t limited to Ukraine. Neo Nazis were elected to the Municipality of Paris years ago. There were plenty of protests, but I don’t recall anyone advocating an invasion based on the Denazification of Paris.
° far more than Ukraine, the Putin regime meets any definition of fascism.
° when the last recognised vote (regarding independence) occurred in Ukraine, every region of the country voted between strongly and overwhelmingly to separate from the Russian dominated Soviet Union. Had they wished to remain attached to Russia, they would have voted diffently.
The more recent “votes” have generally been by household, door to door, under the military supervision of Russia and Russian backed separatists, rather than secret ballot.
The votes were held during war and civil war and after significant numbers of those supporting Ukraine had fled
° Putin apologists rarely address the fact that Putin is on the record as previously saying- Ukraine joining NATO was a matter for Ukraine and NATO
° almost all of Russia’s former Warsaw Pact allies now oppose Putin, and have sought to join NATO because they feared Russia’s colonialism and expansionism
° the decision to invade Ukraine was entirely Putin’s. I doubt whether he is so stupid that he was manipulated into this.
More likely is that he saw the opportunity, when the west was recovering from the pandemic, lockdowns and the economic difficulties that resulted. The US was also humiliated in its Afghanistan withdrawal, and Putin most likely believed the US would not chance another foreign policy and military debacle. Putin misjudged the willingness of Ukrainians to resist and the resolve of western Europe to support.