Since the national punditocracy is commenting on the Grave Implications of federalizing D.C.’s police (which are actually kinda grave!), I want to give a D.C. native and resident’s brief view of what Trump is doing (like all such reflections, this will be personal, which is to say, myopic). Monday night, at least a dozen police officers were stationed along 18th Street NW, starting from P Street all the way to Willard St. By stationed, I mean police officers’ cars were blocking one lane of traffic (on a two lane road) at every intersection.
In one of the safest places in the city. This is a waste of resources, and it seems designed to placate a bunch of pants-shitting suburbanites who don’t want to experience a single moment of annoyance or discomfort. Note that “pants-shitting suburbanites” includes a bunch of Republican staffers and apparatchiks who have moved to D.C. and expect it to be a lily white suburb. If you’re scared to walk down 18th, north of the circle on an August evening, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe this city just isn’t for you.
Anyway, fuck Trump and fuck Republicans.
mikethemadbiologist
Shit is going to get real interesting when Mamdani wins in NYC, the cops stage a coup, Trump sends in troops to back them up, and the Dem party elite thank him for it.
I can think of one response beyond lawsuits and angry-worded letters and posturing. New York’s governor could call out New York’s National Guard to suppress the insurrection. She has indicated a willingness to fight.
Someone might notify the troops that this is insurrection, regardless of who ordered them in.
They just think they can ‘scare’ people into civility…
…but the example above shows the opposite: the ones doing the scaring are more scared of what they’re supposed to stop.
Cops who feel they have something to lose will NEVER truly be able to win a war against a populace who feel they have nothing left to lose. The latter see these ‘scare’ tactics of the already scared, and know they’ve already won if it ever comes to it. We don’t condition our cops to turn off the ‘something to lose’ response, turn on the personal sacrifice response, which is a reason Uvalde went the way it did.
And that extends up the federal chain – the ones that really are willing to sacrifice aren’t being put into these positions, because they’re the *smart* ones that will make the judgement call of ‘is this worth it’ and decide no.
At SOME point, maybe with this ridiculous propaganda-driven ICE recruitment job, he’ll have “cops” he can control who have nothing to lose (hell, Dean Cain, anyone?) that are willing to get into a fight and shoot…
…but against a REAL crime gain, they’re going to lose.
and against public opinion, they’re going to lose…because the only ones that believe it is as bad as he has said in that rambling numbers-dump, are the ones that already believed it before he was ever elected because they’ve been conditioned to believe it their entire lives.