What are the key things we can take away from Trump's DC takeover? - opinion

Or is all this setting the stage for using military units to quash dissent, even of the most peaceful variety, and for further undermining American democracy?

With that voting history, no Republican will vote for statehood for DC, because that would give residents of what locals call “the last colony” two Democrats in the Senate and one more in the House of Representatives. Trump, increasingly claiming almost total control over the government, is threatening to remove the limited home rule DC residents already have, leaving them with license plates reminding all of the words of the American Revolution, taxation without representation. Until he orders that removed, too.

Does the convicted felon and draft dodger like playing soldier? Did he order the army to stage a big parade on his birthday and tell everyone it was for the US Army’s 250th anniversary? If not, why isn’t he planning big celebrations for the navy and marines 250ths this year as well?

If he is so concerned about urban violence, why are most of the troops he mobilized stationed in quiet tourist and high-media visibility areas, and too few sent to the high-crime areas?

Will he “solve” DC’s crime and homeless problems by driving them into the Maryland and Virginia suburbs?

What is the real emergency? Could it be the need to mollify an increasingly restive base? Is that why he lies about polling data on his job performance? Is it a nagging need for distractions from his failures as a peacemaker (forget the boasts; the big ones are still raging, and he looks feckless) and his inability to bury the Jeffrey Epstein scandal?.

Are DC restaurants really “busier than they’ve been in a long time,” as Trump has said, or is there, as the eateries themselves report, a sharp drop in customers since Trump’s assault began?

I doubt anyone on his staff would correct him on any of those numbers and facts; they know the danger that awaits people who tell him things he doesn’t want to hear.

I saw firsthand how the military can become part of the problem, not the solution.

I served in the Ohio Army National Guard during the race riots of the 1960s and as a member of the 107th Armored Cavalry in May 1970, when elements of my unit were deployed to Kent State University. I was not on campus that day but spoke to several who were.

Sending troops with almost no riot training as a show of force, for a governor running for the GOP senate nomination a few days later, who wanted to show he was as tough on crime as his hero, Richard Nixon, produced predictably tragic results.

We had a saying in the 107th, like most units: “We the untrained, sent by the unqualified, to do the unnecessary.” It was never truer than at Kent State that day. I hope training has improved since then but one thing hasn’t: the National Guard is an army, not a cheap auxiliary for the local police to call out for an occasional crisis.

It appears that only one Republican governor, Vermont’s Phil Scott, turned down Trump’s request – twice in fact – to send troops. Instead of taking men and women away from their jobs and homes to do clerical work for a year for ICE, he said, hire back some of the thousands of federal workers Trump had fired.

If Trump is serious about the crime problem, he should be putting more money into hiring and training professional police for DC and elsewhere instead of spending it to build a lavish ballroom, pave over the Rose Garden, refit an extraordinarily expensive “gift” replacement for Air Force One, and tart up the Oval Office. He has said he wants to “re-grass” Washington’s parks to make them look like one of his golf clubs.

The DC takeover is more political theater reminiscent of authoritarian regimes of the last century in Germany, Italy, Russia, Cuba, and China. What’s next? A Reichstag fire?

How serious can this elderly felon really be about enforcing law and order when he instigated an insurrection on January 6, 2021, and then pardoned hundreds of criminals charged with assaulting, resisting, or interfering with law enforcement that day, and then claim to be fighting crime?

Many observers say the real reason Trump is taking over DC is because he can. That’s not all. He is the witting tool of a cadre of ultra-conservatives intent on pushing the limits of presidential power at the expense of the Constitution, the other two branches of government, and the states.

As much as he is trying to make the nation’s capital his plantation, Trump’s excesses and abuses could turn him into the poster boy for statehood.

With Chicago apparently next on Trump’s hit list, it is worth noting the words of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker: “It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.”