Trump’s step today does not serve Washington’s security. It serves to set an example – that Trump can militarize American roads at will, without the approval of the politicians and the local people. The resistance of the local representatives actually elected, such as the Mayor of Washington, looks powerless.
The parallels to Trump’s first term are obvious. In 2020 he had demonstrators cleared in front of the white house with the help of federal units. In its second term, the US capital is just another example of a series of military measures that Trump has already ordered. Most recently with his completely exaggerated step to send the National Guard and the Navy to Los Angeles – against the will of the California governor Gavin Newsom.
Trump’s decision has great dangers. Because the military to send the military to Washington under false preliminary walls represents an unprecedented provocation and means a serious restriction. Of all people, the residents of Washington, a city populated by Democrats and Black Americans, who have no full representation in the congress anyway, are now being monitored by military units that are subject to the president alone. The potential for abuse of power is enormous, especially if the location should escalate on site.
Even the rhetoric of the American president is terrifying and significant. Because she also shows that he is primarily concerned with political demonstration of power and not about “law and order”. “Be prepared! There will be no ‘Mr. Nice Guy’,” he wrote “Truth Social” before his announcement on his social network. “We want our capital back.”
So no ruling representative speaks. This is how a conqueror speaks. Trump reduces a city with more than 700,000 inhabitants, most of which live completely undisturbed every day from acts of violence, to a stage of terror. In fact, there are impoverished quarters that are inhabited by black Americans in which violence is part of everyday life. But it was not exactly about these areas Trump and his fellow campaigners. And crime in the other quarters has been falling again for a long time.
Trump believes that he can perform his authoritarian spectacle in the middle of the capital without consequences. Resistance to these disproportionate measures would now be absolutely necessary at the latest. Because you shouldn’t be wrong: if this step has existed, it will not stop in Washington or Los Angeles.
The precedent that has now been set by Trump, which has now been set several times, simply inventing an emergency, using the military in Germany and taking over the local police authorities could be used against any city at any time. The pressing question has been more than ever since Trump’s taking office in January of this year: the Americans take this further urgent warning seriously before the authoritarian madness becomes new normality.
