Credit Image: © Nicolas Liponne/NurPhoto via ZUMA Press
President Donald Trump’s effort to restore order in the District of Columbia is objectively a success. According to Washington DC mayor Muriel Bowser, a black woman and no conservative, violent crime is down 45 percent compared to the same time last year. This includes an astonishing 87 percent drop in carjackings, as well as significant declines in homicide and robberies. Stunning progressives, the mayor issued an order that instructs local police to work with federal officers, providing “the pathway forward beyond the Presidential emergency.” This seems like an obvious win for the city.
Naturally, not all people feel this way. One “Zeeshan Aleem” for MSNBC recounts a curious incident where he approached some South Carolina guardsmen deployed in the city who expressed satisfaction in their mission.
They told me they had been dispatched from South Carolina, and they felt they were helping keep the Capital safe. When I pointed out that D.C. was already experiencing a 30-year low in violent crime, and that they were stationed in a rich and safe area, one of them breezily countered that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had herself said that the presence of extra force in the city had contributed to a huge downturn in crime. “Honestly, I’m feeling really good about being here,” he told me with a grin.
This seems like a heartwarming story. Remarkably, Mr. Aleem calls it an “unpleasant exchange” and says it “illustrated the costs of the mayor’s controversial approach to handling President Donald Trump’s despotic militarization of D.C. life.” What was unpleasant about it? Who finds it controversial exactly? We are not told. Instead, Mr. Aleem complains that the mayor’s decision to “forgo resistance gives credibility to Trump’s tyrannical behavior.” Why the mayor should “resist,” and what form that would take, is also left unexplained.
The mayor may simply be stalling for time. The District has little autonomy from the federal government, and so the mayor must go along with it for a little while. However, the city is also suing to stop National Guard deployment. The interim commanding general for the DC National Guard, Brigadier General Leland Blanchard III, said he is extending the deployment until November 30. The courts will decide, as with all things in the chaotic American system of government.
Credit Image: © Imago via ZUMA Press
Still, if Washington DC wants to stop the deployment, it will probably win. Judge Charles Breyer, a Bill Clinton appointee who happens to be the younger brother of former liberal Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, recently ruled that the Trump Administration violated the law when it sent National Guard troops to back immigration law enforcement in southern California.
On June 19, an appeals court had ruled unanimously that conditions were sufficient for the President to send in the troops. However, now Judge Breyer says that the President had “willfully” violated the Posse Comitatus Act, risking the creation of a national police force with the President as Commander-in-Chief. He specifically banned the National Guard from performing certain police functions. The judge even declared that the troops had received improper training.
More importantly, the judge cited President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s determination to use the National Guard in other cities as evidence that the President sought to federalize law enforcement. “The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles,” he said. The Trump Administration will appeal, and a higher court has already paused Judge Breyer’s ruling while the appeal proceeds.
The Trump Administration also suffered a setback in its attempt to use the Alien Enemies Act to remove illegals who are part of a violent gang. The Wall Street Journal reported that despite the White House’s claim that Venezuela is attempting a “predatory incursion” of American territory via illegal immigration, two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals disagreed. Though the Trump Administration designated members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang a foreign terrorist organization, the court said there no was no invasion of predatory incursion. “A country’s encouraging its residents and citizens to enter this country illegally is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force to occupy, to disrupt, or to otherwise harm the United States,” said Judge Leslie Southwick. Judge Southwick is a George W. Bush appointee, and Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez, who joined him in the ruling, is a Joe Biden appointee. Judge Ramirez is also the daughter of Mexican migrants who came to this country under the supposedly “temporary” bracero guest worker program.
President Trump did win support from Andrew Oldham, who has been floated as a potential Supreme Court nominee. He argued that the court was abandoning its traditional deference to the president on foreign affairs. President Trump, he argued, was being subjected to different rules than any other president before him.
Yet all of this arguably misses the essential point. Judge Southwick says that an illegal influx of foreigners, even one pushed by a foreign government, does not count as an invasion because there is no organized armed force. First, one could argue that a criminal gang that uses violence and threats to achieve its ends is precisely what is meant by an “organized armed force.” However, if one rejects that, one still must ask what the point of an invasion really is.
A military, after all, merely is a means, not an end. The point of a military is to prevent an invasion by foreigners. What are the purposes of an invasion? There are at least three. First, the invader takes physical ownership of territory. Secondly, the invader establishes political ownership of the territory. Third, the invader removes the previous owners from power. The Tren de Aragua gang was using kidnapping and even torture in apartments in Colorado. The Trump Administration also recently destroyed a boat reportedly operated by the gang because it was being used to smuggle drugs. There will be no legal action over this, suggesting that courts recognize the President has the right to use lethal force against this target outside America’s borders.
However, once inside the borders, the gang has seeming immunity for action because it does not dress up in a uniform. Yet until very recently, being part of an armed military was necessary because any incursion of foreigners would be resisted, perhaps violently. Now, however, this is not permissible. One can achieve the ends of an invasion simply by crossing the border, and American justice will prevent swift and decisive action. The military is rendered pointless if invaders simply stroll across unarmed. One wonders why any American enemy bothers with an army. One wonders why we do either.
In both cases, courts raised concerns over the powers of the federal government to operate in domestic law enforcement, even to achieve federal ends or to protect federal assets. Such concerns about the federal use of the military are amusing given the media’s focus on the anniversary of the so-called “Little Rock Nine.” In that case, black students integrated a high school in Arkansas against the wishes of local leaders and politicians. The federal government used troops with bayonets drawn to force whites into integrated schools. Integration was forced on the South — quite literally with bayonets — by the 101st Airborne. Objections about using the military to enforce political ends on states and localities were rendered moot about 75 years ago.
Few now outside the ranks of “white nationalists” and “racists” find such optics objectionable. Indeed, Time magazine believes that lesson that we need to learn is that the fight for desegregation is incomplete and “the job isn’t done yet.” After all, despite repeated federal demands for more racial balance and Arkansas spending more than one billion dollars to comply, Time says “the district continues to face financial challenges and low test scores.” There is little concern about past or future federal intervention.
While it was apparently a legitimate role for paratroopers to make sure that whites do not have their own schools, using federal troops today to prevent violent crime may cause something close to an insurrection. We will find out soon. President Trump has all but guaranteed he will send troops to Chicago. “We’re going in,” he said. “Look, I have an obligation. This isn’t a political thing. I have an obligation.” Over Labor Day weekend, at least eight people were killed and fifty others were shot in Chicago; those concerned about the homicide rate in the city can at least be grateful for traditionally poor African-American marksmanship. President Trump argued that he will solve the crime problem in Chicago “fast, just like I did in DC.”
In response, Mayor Brandon Johnson has called for Chicago to “rise up against tyranny.” The mayor may find it difficult to cast himself as a freedom fighter. He has only a 26 percent approval rating, and a majority of every demographic group other than blacks disapproves of him. Nonetheless, he has framed his fight almost as an insurrection. “We’re not going to surrender our humanity to this tyrant,” he said.
I can tell you this: the city of Chicago has a long history of standing up against tyranny, resisting those who wish to undermine the interests of working people. We’re not going to back down. We’re not going to cower. We’re not going to bend. We’re not going to break. We are Chicago. We are the soul of America.
These are extraordinary boasts about an effort to reduce crime. While homicides have fallen in Chicago, so too have arrests. Just about one in four murderers is actually arrested. Chicago has been the “homicide capital” of the United States for 13 straight years. If it is the soul of America, America has a rotten soul.
Mayor Johnson has an explanation for that too. The problem is that red states are sending their guns to Chicago, and its residents just cannot help shooting each other after that.
Chicago will continue to have a “violence problem” as long as Red states continue to have a gun problem. The endless flow of illegal guns into Chicago can be traced to Red states like Mississippi, Indiana, and Louisiana. It is up to the federal government to step up and stop… pic.twitter.com/hYlVhCr8Fg
— Mayor Brandon Johnson (@ChicagosMayor) September 2, 2025
“This is not about fighting crime,” said Illinois Governor JD Pritzker recently. “This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city in a blue state.” Governor Gavin Newsom of California, who is probably also running for president, mocked President Trump for targeting blue states, suggesting the president should instead be worried about high crime cities in red states like Mississippi and Louisiana. Of course, the governor is right, because such states do have high-crime cities like Jackson and New Orleans, with high, crime-prone black populations. President Trump could transform the debate by taking up Governor Newsom’s challenge. Cities, unlike states, do not have self-governing powers at the same level, and with support from Republican governors, the President’s plan would likely meet with more success.
Yet the larger problem for the President remains. The courts seem utterly determined to resist the his agenda on the use of federal law enforcement to fight crime and foreign gangs. Unless the Supreme Court overturns these two rulings, the President will be limited to using Washington DC as a case study. It is likely a court will eventually find even his use of troops in Washington unacceptable, regardless of the broad constitutional authority the federal government supposedly holds over the Capital.
More than this, in Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, and other cities where the President could conceivably want to use law enforcement to back local cops, state and local governments are willing to resist fiercely. It is simply no longer a consensus position that governments should reduce crime.
An attendee with a ‘Not Great’ hat holds up a ‘Free DC’ banner as a press conference is held at the DC Superior Court to address the deployment of the National Guard in the city. (Credit Image: © Laura Brett/ZUMA Press Wire)
The rise of Black Lives Matter, concerns over supposed police brutality and overincarceration, and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the color of crime mean that liberal politicians must put the feelings of black activists over law-abiding citizens. More than this, as protests against troops in Washington DC suggest, it seems to be the wealthiest, most affluent, and whitest citizens who are the most outraged. They are well-educated in the doctrines of critical race theory and the overwrought fears of “anti-fascism,” and so will hysterically resist any effort to restore order.
A DC resident shared this photo she took at Union Station yesterday. Looks like a scene from the Handmaid’s Tale, but no, just another day of Trump’s militarization of DC right now. #UnderHisEye pic.twitter.com/lXJaAFmohU
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) September 3, 2025
President Trump could take up Gavin Newsom’s challenge and send troops to blue cities in red states. This would also have the collateral benefit of showing the American people that it is blacks in those cities who are responsible for most crime. Ultimately, however, there is no solution possible to stop crime in most of these big cities within the existing system. There is also no indication the courts will allow the President to stop it, even if there are foreign terrorists present or there are attacks on federal personnel.
What may be necessary is a kind of gendarmerie, a national and quasi-military police force of the sort found in France, Italy, and other countries. If the courts will not let the President have a federal law enforcement body via the military, establish an American gendarmerie. This is a military body that maintains order and is under the control of the central government, as well as another defense force in cases of war or emergency.
Such an extreme solution seems antithetical to American traditions. Yet the traditional divisions between states and the federal government no longer seem meaningful. Many “blue states” are mostly rural and conservative except for a major metropolitan center that dominates the state and imposes liberal policies. With many states filling up with a critical mass of non-whites and illegal immigrants, states like California are also practically defying national immigration legislation. The political divisions of the day are mostly found within states, between rural areas and cities. The battle lines of American politics are race and party, not region.
The political task for the Trump Administration, or any right-wing government that seeks to preserve America, is a kind of institutional reconquest. Step one was achieved with the formation of a well-funded immigration law enforcement body, as ICE enjoys massive support from the “Big Beautiful Bill.” Step two is a law enforcement body that the President himself can rely on. Of course, the obvious objection is that such a body could also be used by a left-wing president to repress right-wingers seeking freedom from a central authority under the control of political enemies. However, given what the FBI did after January 6 and the indifference of the courts, we can expect that will happen regardless. The military was already used to end white institutions, and when progressives get the chance, it will be used again, and the courts will allow it. The Right has only this one chance. While the Right has power, it must use it or risk losing the cities and ultimately the country itself. If that means creating a new force to exercise that power, so be it.
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