Trump’s takeover of Washington, D.C. is his latest step towards imposing a police state where civil liberties are shredded and cops are given free rein to carry out racist violence. At a press conference attended by cabinet secretaries as well as the heads of the FBI and DEA, Trump announced he was putting Attorney General Pam Bondi in direct command of the DC police. Day-to-day operations will be led by the head of the DEA, and National Guard troops and FBI agents will be mobilized to patrol the streets.
Trump justified his takeover using extreme racist rhetoric designed to demonize Black youth. Trump talked about mythical “roving mobs of wild youth” and “caravans of masked youth rampaging through the streets”. Crime is in fact significantly declining in DC and many other major cities across the country, part of a nationwide trend that’s been observable for at least two years now. The Trump administration is constructing a false reality using the most obvious racist dog whistles in the book to justify the expansion of police powers and his own power.
Trump was over the top in his threats of brutal violence. He encouraged police to “knock the hell out of them because that’s the only language they understand”. And he said that cops are now “allowed to do whatever the hell they want”. Trump also implied that ICE would step up deportation raids in DC as part of the takeover.
In one of his most shocking threats, Trump threatened to demolish the neighborhoods he says are home to so-called criminals: “We’re getting rid of the slums where they live.” Black residents have been systematically pushed out of the District in a process of gentrification that has spanned two decades. This appears to be a direct threat from the sitting president to dismantle some of the few remaining Black neighborhoods in the district.
The people of DC have long fought for basic democratic rights and representation. From 1874 until 1973, the District was ruled directly by Congress, with residents having no right to elect a local government or control their own municipal affairs. Until 2010, Washington, D.C. was a majority Black city, and the idea of having a mostly Black electorate choose the leadership of the capital city was unacceptable to the racist politicians who ran the federal government. As part of the civil rights revolution that overthrew Jim Crow, DC residents fought for and won the Home Rule Act of 1973, which allowed for an elected mayor and city council.
However, the act still gave Congress the right to veto legislation passed by the local government, and afforded certain emergency powers to the president. DC residents have never been allowed to elect voting representatives to the House or the Senate, despite having a population that is larger than Vermont or Wyoming.
But even under the Home Rule Act, Trump has no legal authority to go forward with the takeover. The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, a DC-based civil rights law firm, explained in a statement, “The federal takeover of the District of Columbia police department is an unlawful abuse of federal authority, outside the conditions required for invocation of Section 740 of the Home Rule Act or for the deployment of the National Guard … There are no emergency circumstances in the District of Columbia as required to justify the seizure of the District’s police department or national guard militarization of District streets.”
The police and military crackdown Trump is promising in DC sets a dangerous precedent for the entire country. When a reporter asked if soldiers and federal cops would be used to occupy other cities across the country, Trump said “we’re gonna see what happens”. The forces being deployed to the streets of DC and possibly elsewhere would clearly feel they have a mandate to violate people’s constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, and to carry out wanton acts of violence with impunity. Everyone in the country has a stake in stopping this police state crackdown in DC.
As the Trump administration officials held their press conference, a huge crowd of DC residents gathered outside the White House to protest this attack on democracy and civil rights. This struggle is certain to continue as cops and troops are mobilized to occupy the streets. Ending this crackdown is of central importance to the entire movement to stop Trump’s billionaire agenda.
