Federalization of U.S. Cities and the Fabricated Presidency of Donald J. Trump
The top 10 most dangerous cities in the United States today in terms of overall crime rate are, in reverse order:
- Houston, TX
9. Birmingham, Al
8. Cleveland, OH
7. New Orleans, LA
6. Kansas City, MO
5. Detroit, MI
4. Minneapolis, MN
3. Little Rock, AR
2. Saint Louis, MO
- Memphis, TN
Nonetheless, Donald Trump, as president during his second term, has federalized 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to “police” the streets of Los Angeles, and 800 National Guard in Washington, DC against the advice and authority of the leaders of these cities, and, specifically, its mayors: Mayor Karen Bass and Mayor Muriel Bowser.
At a press conference on Monday, August 11, 2025, President Trump announced he is placing the Washington, DC, police department “under direct federal control.” He has deployed National Guard troops by arguing that he is taking this action supposedly to restore order in the city, which he described as full of “crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor.”
Looking at the top 25 places in the US regarding the overall violent crime rates per 100K people, neither Los Angeles nor Washington, DC are included, nor are they included in the 25 cities with the highest rates of murders, rapes, robberies, nor aggravated assaults per 100K residents.
Washington, DC, in 2024, experienced a decline in violent crime, including a significant drop in carjackings and homicides. Even Trump’s FBI Director, Kash Patel admitted at the press conference that crime rates have come down substantially.
“We’re going to take back our capital,” Trump continued at his press conference. “And then we’ll look at other cities also.”
The cities he listed by name are Baltimore, New York City, Chicago, and Oakland. Is it mere coincidence that all the cities he plans to invade and those he has already taken over with the National Guard and federalized police forces are run in Blue states by black mayors?
Eight of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the United States are in states led by Republicans, which voted for Donald Trump in the last election. He, nonetheless, focuses his wrath and naked power grabbing actions on Blue regions of the country.
If the Congress bends to his will, Trump actions could lead to the termination of Washington, DC’s “home rule” status of self-government granted by Congress in 1973.
Turning on its head the rule that “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS,” Donald Trump, instead, follows his own rule of “GRAB EXTRA-CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS AND BREAK NORMS IN THE CASES OF YOUR FABRICATED EMERGENCIES.”
Much of the crimes that are committed in Washington, DC, as in many other cities throughout the nation, are perpetrated by young people, many of whom are locked in a seemingly endless cycle of poverty, decreasing job opportunities, and a recurring sense of hopelessness.
If Trump were serious in lowering crime and homelessness rates in Washington, DC and across the country, first he would not have supported the “One Big Beautiful Bill” that has become the One Giant Ugly Law.
Rather than reducing or totally eliminating funding, he would have supported increases in Medicaid benefits to the states, federal food assistance programs such as SNAP and school breakfasts and lunches, funding for parks and recreation programs, after school programs, Head Start programs, arts and music programs in the schools, college preparatory courses, technology and vocational education such as auto mechanics, electronics, plumbing, and carpentry, and increases in federal funding to Department of Education, which funds special education programs across the states.
He would fund local drug treatment programs, mental health treatment programs, and police departments to improve community policing projects in which police get to know and truly understand the people they are meant to serve. Community advisory boards would have increased voice in their recommendations to police departments.
While crime rates statistically have dropped across the country, and specifically, in our nation’s capital, the perception remains that our cities are crime laden, especially by people who may reside in smaller rural communities.
Trump must be given credit for tackling a real problem, but in a dictatorial and lawless fashion. We must continue to work to make our nation safer not only in our larger cities, but throughout the country in small rural towns as well.
Trump’s authoritarian proposed “rapid response force,” however, will continue to take the US down his path of dictatorial fascism. He has imposed a sort of military street parade that no one asked for and no one wants.
If reducing crime had been Trump’s intention, why then in May, before he acted to federalize these cities, did Trump and his administration seriously reduce funding to cities earmarked for increasing public safety and reducing violent crime?
The administration terminated more than 365 grants totaling approximately $811 million within the US Department of Justice that have proven successful in lowering gun violence, assisting victims of crime, supporting law enforcement, and reducing recidivism.
If Trump had been serious about reducing crime, why then did he confer pardons to all the January 6, 2021, rioters who stormed the US Capitol, some who violently attacked police officers and vandalized this historic building?
If Trump had been serious about reducing crime, he would have better monitored his own actions regarding his taking of classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago mansion and resort, and he would never have committed the 34 felony counts he was convicted of in his “hush money” case.
Most importantly, he would have kept his wandering predatory hands off the body of E. Gene Carroll instead of being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a court of law. And he would not have been convicted, along with his father, of racial discrimination in the sales and rental of their New York properties.
And we cannot forget the $355 million in penalties Trump and his company was ordered to pay by a New York judge for engaging in a scheme to fraud banks and other financial agencies by seriously inflating his wealth in order to procure massive loans.
Trump’s takeover of Washington, DC and other cities specifically is rooted in his attempt to look tough, to appear as the strongman autocratic absolute ruler, as an authoritarian, as a bully, and to divert attention away from the nation’s shrinking economy, the terror he has unleashed by his I.C.E goon squads, and the continuing and ever-deepening investigation into his ties to the pedophilic sex ring of Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.
Trump is attempting to normalize military actions against US citizens. Nothing would probably please Trump more than to see young black men handcuffed in the streets in addition to the forced displacement of people without homes on the evening news while he watches the Fox “News” channel.
He is attempting, consciously or unconsciously, to craft himself into the reincarnation of the likes of the racist former Alabama Governor and one-time presidential candidate George Wallace or the corrupt authoritarian “populist” politician and Senator from Louisiana, Huey P. Long.
Taking over Blue cities falls squarely in line with his intimidation, reduced grants funding, and capture of universities, media outlets, law firms, and other private and public institutions; and his inconsistent and inflationary imposition of tariffs on random countries across the globe.
He is now calling for the CEOs of some of the top companies to be fired. His micromanagement obsession has even reached the depths of ordering the Coca Cola company to use cane sugar instead of corn syrup. In addition, he continually humiliates our international allies and cozies up to our foes.
Trump is currently vetting documents and other archival materials at the Smithsonian Museums to extract anything presenting him and his presidency in a bad light (in this regard, he fired Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after the release of a recent monthly jobs report that Trump considered was fraudulent).
In addition, in his revisionist history project, he is eliminating much of the documentation of the institution of slavery and the major advancements and achievements made by African Americans, as he is eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the public and private sectors.
Trump’s actions in his attempt to federalize local police forces amounts to adding another notch in his authoritarian takeover of the United States. It conforms to his overall theme that he outlined the day he descended the golden escalator and first threw his quaffed and sprayed hair in the ring for the Republican presidential nomination in the summer of 2015: that the US is a declining nation with hordes of violent gangs invading from our southern border and by lawless immigrants from within, and that only he can fix it.
He further articulated his “American carnage” theme at his first inaugural address upon the balcony of the very building his cabal of insurrectionists would storm just four years later.
If Trump were actually serious about reducing crime, he would look in the mirror.
