Trump Fabricates Crisis to Seize Control of Washington's Police, Floods City with Federal Troops

This morning, President Trump, flanked by his usual parade of upward-failing secretaries, announced he is invoking Section 740 of the Home Rule Act, handing himself sweeping emergency powers over D.C. His excuse is that the capital is a “lawless hellscape.” The truth is that violent crime is at a 30-year low. What he has actually done is hijack the Metropolitan Police Department for 30 days and flood the streets with nearly a thousand federal troops — all because he can.

This is not about crime. It is about control.

D.C. has always been a constitutional orphan. It is not a state. It has no senators and only a lone non-voting delegate in Congress. Its mayor and council operate only as long as Congress allows, and the president holds powers here that cannot be used anywhere else. Trump is treating the city like a personal laboratory for authoritarian rule, running experiments on 700,000 residents who never consented to be test subjects.

By invoking Section 740, he has crossed a line no modern president has touched. He can keep the MPD under federal control for 30 days, and a compliant Congress can extend that indefinitely. Washingtonians have no Senate representation to defend them and no voting bloc in the House to fight for them. They are at the mercy of a federal government led by the man actively dismantling their autonomy, the same man who wrecked the city’s economy and refused to repair it.

This will not stay contained to Washington.

While Trump cannot directly take over any police department he chooses, he can pressure Republican legislatures to do it for him. Missouri Republicans already seized control of the police department in St. Louis. If this trial run in the capital faces no serious resistance, more blue cities will be stripped of their power under the banner of “law and order.”

The reach of these powers goes beyond policing. Trump can federalize any state’s National Guard, override governors, and send those troops into cities he declares “under siege.” His next targets are already named: Chicago, New York, Baltimore, and Oakland.

This is occupation, not law enforcement.

The symbolism is chilling. For the first time since 1814, hostile forces have seized Washington. Then, the invaders were British troops in red coats. Now, it is the president himself using the machinery of the federal government against his own citizens.

In 1814, the British burned the city and left. This time, the occupation can be extended, cemented, and normalized. The same laws and fabricated justifications used here can be replicated anywhere. The same rhetoric that paints Washingtonians as criminals will be used to dehumanize residents of Chicago, New York, and Oakland.

Trump calls this the liberation of D.C. from lawlessness. In reality, it is the city being placed in shackles. Residents already denied full citizenship are now part of an authoritarian pilot program. D.C. has been the nation’s capital for more than two centuries, yet its people have never enjoyed full freedom. Now they are more vulnerable than ever, and the rest of the country, still wrapped in the illusion that this cannot happen to them, stands next in line.

This is not a debate about policy or a temporary intervention. It is a live demonstration of how quickly democracy’s structure can be torn apart when one man decides to dismantle it.