Fascist Takeover of D.C.

It's important to keep saying Donald Trump is lying to incite fear in people and institute a fascist regime to control hyperbolized or nonexistent problems.

Our vastly exaggerated immigration "problem" — which should actually be considered an advantage in a country with a declining birth rate, if the freakout over that is to be believed — has led to the monumental funding of ICE, so the agency can make us into a permanent police state with the largest prison system, on top of our already-largest regular prison system.

And now, after trying to occupy LA, the Trump regime plans to occupy Washington D.C. because its crime is supposedly out of control. 

When all objective measures show it's at the lowest rate in 30, 40, 50+ years:



Chart from Steve Rattner.

At least in the Reichstag fire there was an actual fire, even though it was set. The takeover of D.C. is from a probably fake situation where one of the DOGE boys got beaten by two 15-year-olds at 3:00 in the morning. So what if it did happen? It's not a reason to nationalize a police force, bring in FBI agents unqualified to walk a beat, or send in the National Guard.

What are all those troops and agents going to do? Stand on corners all through Black neighborhoods with automatic weapons? Follow every Black man who dares move?

D.C. already has more cops per capita than any other U.S. city:

Source

That number of cops does not include the Capitol police or the Park Police who patrol along the National Mall or other areas. Among other types of police in the city! It sounds like there are close to a dozen police entities within D.C., on top of the city's own police force, which is the only one shown in the graph.

And why does anyone believe anything Trump's people say about something that supposedly happened? I will not be surprised if it turns out the situation was not what has been described.

I lived in D.C. from 1983–1986, when — as the chart above shows — violent crime was about 50% higher than it was in the most recent year shown. (It's even lower than that in 2025, by all accounts. 

There was some violent crime in the newspaper back then, of course, but I didn't know anyone who was a victim of it. Personally, I only experienced street harassment, and knew of the occasional person with a car window broken. That's it.

My mother, like a typical rural resident, gave me an alarm/screaming device to carry when I moved there. I had it with me the first few weeks or so, but at some point lost track of it. All you had to do was be street aware (at least as a white person in the parts of the city where I was) and you were likely to be fine for years in the mid-1980s.

So now — when violent crime is two-thirds what it was when I lived there, and at a level not seen since the late 1960s, we're suddenly in an imaginary crime epidemic that requires 800 National Guard troops and federalized police.

We know it's not true. We know Trump is a fascist and also trying to distract from his involvement with Epstein and history as a serial molester. 

Too bad Republicans with power don't do anything to stop this megalomaniac freak before he destroys the country.

A few BlueSky comments:

Yeah, “president using internal security forces and military to permanently occupy capital city” would be viewed as such if happening anywhere else
Neomakhnovist

Troops deployed to the streets of the Capital within the first year. I DID have that on my bingo card.
Patrick Chovanec

The only place in DC where crime is up is the White House.
Jonathan Cohn

DC statehood is now an imperative. No more dicking around. Next Dem majority, get it done immediately.
Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social

this dc situation looks pretty horrible. i wish i had more to say except that autocracy is always mundane and petty and vicious and encourages you to look away and be safe. and you can live quite normally under it until you're a direct target
Talia Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social