Troops are all over national capitals in places like China, Myanmar, Egypt or Central Asia. It’s a sure sign of repressive, undemocratic and troubled states.
So why is Donald Trump so desperate to send soldiers onto American streets?
The US president on Wednesday made his latest threat to deploy National Guard reservists in Washington, DC, to tackle crimes, muggings and murders. DC can be a rough place, but in the last year, homicides, carjackings, robberies and other violent crimes have fallen. It’s nowhere near as dangerous as it was in the 1990s when derelict houses served as crack dens within sight of the US Capitol. A wave of gentrification and regeneration has been transformational.
But this doesn’t fit the president’s dystopian vision of American inner cities pulsating with violent crime and gang warfare. There’s a strong racial undertone to his demonizing of urban life, since many residents are minorities. Trump is always slandering cities like Detroit and Chicago that have large Black populations. And he spent his birthday in July presiding over a military parade in Washington.
A military crackdown would allow Trump to play his favorite game of let’s pretend to be a dictator. He thinks he’s got ultimate power and the world’s most powerful military at his command, so why shouldn’t he?
The president has already dispatched reserve troops and Marines to Los Angeles — where they weren’t needed — to guard federal buildings amid recent protests. He sent troops in expensive and extended deployments to take control over federal land at the US border with Mexico, though there are often reports that many don’t have much to do. The commander in chief has also dispatched soldiers to immigration facilities. He’s not yet using them in actual deportation operations. But this administration is addicted to tin pot shows of strength. Trump has already vowed to have troops protect the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where nations are supposed to speak peace unto nations.
“We’re going to have troops everywhere,” he said before ordering soldiers to Los Angeles – against the wishes of the city's mayor and California’s governor.
In most cases, there are no emergencies in the US that require the use of federal troops. Sometimes you see soldiers in American streets after natural disasters when they are giving out aid rather than aiming their weapons. But it’s highly unusual for regular forces to operate on American soil – and in most cases it’s illegal. When social order broke down in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the 82nd Airborne was sent to keep the peace. Seeing troops in their distinctive maroon berets performing combat patrols was chilling — because it was so unusual — and reflected how far-gone things were in Nola after an epochal disaster.
It would be easier for Trump to put soldiers on Washington’s streets than elsewhere in the country. That’s because the capital region is a district, not a state, and the city’s 2,700 National Guard personnel report to him. In states, the governor commands the reservists. Even when Trump sent troops to Los Angeles this year, they weren’t empowered to make arrests.
It’s not clear that Trump has properly thought this through, beside the optics, which are a driving motivation for a lot of what he does. What happens, for instance, if a member of the National Guard were to get into a violent altercation? Would they have weapons and be able to fire them? Any such showdowns would likely incite riots and make DC a lot more dangerous than it is already.
Trump might say he’s trying to keep Washingtonians safer. But supplementing civilian law enforcement with military personnel in their camouflage uniforms and armored vehicles would create an atmosphere of political repression as people hurry to work or leave bars and games of the hometown sports teams.
Perhaps that’s what Trump really wants.
