Why is Trump deploying troops to Washington DC?

The Guardian

3 days ago

In a dangerous new escalation of his authoritarian rule, Donald Trump has placed the police of Washington DC under federal control and announced that he will deploy the national guard to the country's capital. According to the president, crime in the city is 'out of control' – no matter that crime numbers are down significantly, including for violent crimes. But, of course, this power grab is not really about facts, it is about distraction and perception, and a chance to reconnect and refocus his base.
Like all the other outrageous things Trump has been doing in the last weeks, the DC takeover is, first and foremost, an attempt to deflect from the Jeffrey Epstein case. As previously demonstrated by his demand to rename the NFL team to the (racist) Washington Redskins, his attacks on the Wall Street Journal, or his calls to prosecute former president Barack Obama ('Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him?') that he will do anything to get the Epstein case out of the political and public debate.
But it is not just a deflection, it is also an attempt to bring the attention of his base back to the core of their bond with Trump, namely authoritarianism and nativism (which are, as always with the far right, closely connected). There is a clear pattern in the cities Trump links to disorder and violence. Cities like Baltimore, DC and Oakland are broadly identified as Black cities in the US, while cities like Los Angeles (Hispanic) and New York (the quintessential melting pot) are also often excluded from the 'real' America in rightwing narratives.
Of course, in the racist mind, Black and multiracial is connected to crime, danger, disorder – as are 'the city' and 'urban' centers (both deeply racialized concepts in the US). This racist fear and rejection of the multiracial city has a very long history in the country, but also for Trump himself too. Just remember his response to the infamous Central Park Five, a multiracial group of teenagers accused of raping a white female jogger in 1989. Before the facts were known, Trump published an open letter in four local newspapers, in which he described New York City as a city out of control, called for the teenage boys to be 'executed', and demanded that the city's leaders 'Bring back the death penalty. Bring back our police.' Attacks on multiracial cities were also a major part of his deeply racist 2024 campaign. For example, he claimed that Philadelphia was 'ravaged by bloodshed', and compared Detroit to a developing country.
Trump's aversion for multiracial cities was undoubtedly strengthened by the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, which were successfully 'vilified' in the rightwing media – today, only 22% of Republicans support the BLM movement, compared to 84% of Democrats. Moreover, multiracial cities vote disproportionately for the Democrats, which is another sore point. And it is another crucial aspect of Trump's authoritarian power grab.
By targeting multiracial cities like DC and Los Angeles, Trump not only plays into the widespread racist association of these cities with crime and violence, but he also strengthens the belief that these 'Democrat-run cities' are 'out of control'. The message to his base is clear: Democratic rule in the (Black) cities is 'weak' and endangers the (white) 'Heartland' – all, of course, ultimately linked to the alleged 'open border' policies of former president Joe Biden.
Finally, the power grab is part of a broader agenda to create a deeply authoritarian and personalized state, in which the monopoly of violence rests exclusively in the hands of Trump. If implemented, the new budget will transform the US into a deportation state, centered around the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), which is increasingly operating as a presidential militia that is not just above the law but also above other law enforcement and even military agencies.
It is crucial that liberal democratic actors take this authoritarian power grab seriously – without letting it distract them, or the wider public, from the Epstein case. As long as the courts still work, at least to some extent, the Trump administration should be challenged in court – despite initial setbacks, the court case over Trump's power grab in California remains open. Media have a responsibility to inform the public of the real facts, including real-time factchecking of Trump speeches.
But, most importantly, media and politics must stop treating the various actions as 'incidents' and connect the dots – for themselves and for the broader public. While each individual action might not be anti-democratic, they are all connected and together constitute a clear and consistent attack on democracy. And while all the institutions still stand, they represent less and less the liberal democratic values they were founded on.
Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today