Donald Trump has threatened to take his federal crackdown on crime and city cleanliness to New York and Chicago, as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, ordered that national guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington DC under federal control will now be armed.
The US president talked to reporters in the Oval Office and said: “When ready, we will start in Chicago … Chicago is a mess.” He added that then the administration “will help with New York”, amid the controversial and aggressive federal efforts to control leading Democratic-voting cities, each of which has a Black mayor.
If that is all they are doing, it’s to normalize their presence. Until it isn’t all they’re doing anymore.
There are legal safeguards: they need congressional approval to do this longer than 30 days. There are also political safeguards: not very many republican voters are buying the narrative that this is necessary, just like with LA.
Congressional approval is kind of a forgone conclusion at this point isn’t it?
I don’t trust any of the safeguards in place to hold. Some might. Some won’t. The ones that fail will be abused to a greater and greater extent as they test their limits.
This can be filibustered.
I love your optimism.
But at some point, you have to look around and say this isn’t business as usual anymore right?
Maybe we’re not there for you yet, but have you set up your own lines where you can say, once they’ve crossed that line, it’s not okay?
My lines were way back when he promised to chase down dangerous criminals, and they started rounding up day labourers. When they tried to pretend due process was unnecessary and undeserved by the people they didn’t like.
When they deployed military units in domestic cities under the completely bogus claims of emergencies.
Nothing they say is true, because the only thing they treat as true, is whatever is most expedient to them in any given moment.
There is no legal or traditional way of running the government that is safe from their perverting intentions.