What a great headline (about Trump's takeover of the city police department in Washington DC) | and more on disorder

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This is a follow up to an entry last week, "Trump's takeover of DC's police: a warning and another episode in his anti-urban (blue voters) agenda."

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"More High-Crime States Send National Guard to Tame Washington" from New York Magazine.  It riffs on the point that many states overall have much worse crime problems than the nation's big cities. 

Panel 3 from the This Modern World editorial cartoon by Tom Tomorrow, 8/18/2025.

Trump claims the city is ridden with crime ("Inside Week 1 of Trump’s ‘hostile takeover’ of D.C. police," "On Trump’s order, dozens arrested daily in D.C. The details are hidden," and "We asked 604 D.C. residents about Trump’s takeover. Here’s what they said," Washington Post).  

Red state governors are getting in on the fun by sending National Guard troops to assist the federal officers that came with Trump's takeover of the police department.

Crime in DC is dropping, as it is across the nation ("Violent crime is falling rapidly across America," Economist) albeit not so great in the places that are persistently high crime areas--which the federal law enforcement officers seem to be avoiding, sticking to places mostly in Northwest DC, but dipping into the Capitol Hill area of Southeast, and into Northeast DC ("D.C. is hard to police. But the federal takeover won’t stop crime," Post). 

Note that youth crime is a different story, DC has some real issues that aren't being adequately addressed ("How D.C.'s failure to curb truancy fueled a surge in youth crime," "On the box D.C. court officials repeatedly lost track of teens wearing ankle monitors. The timing was deadly," "Serving ‘dead time’ D.C. teens needed rehabilitation to keep the city safe: They languished in a violent detention center instead," Post).

Most people argue that if Trump really cared, he'd offer resources to cities ("On D.C., Trump has the right idea but the wrong reaction. As usual," Post), a point I made in his first adminstration ("Elijah Cummings, President Trump and Revisiting "The Urban Agenda"").  From the Post:

• Instead of diverting hundreds of FBI agents and other federal officers from the vital work they do on national security and complex crimes, Trump could have pushed to give the District the resources it needs to recruit and train enough police officers to get back to full strength after pandemic and budget woes led to a wave of retirements and resignations. 
• He could also have pressed Congress to restore funding cuts that led the D.C. Council to trim services this year. Such moves would have been an enduring fix rather than a four-week show.
• Rather than stationing hundreds of National Guard troops to hang out on street corners — a movie we’ve seen before, such as during Trump I, in the tense summer following the killing of George Floyd in 2020 — the president could have advocated funding to address the city’s breathtaking truancy rate.
• Almost a third of D.C. schoolchildren routinely skip school — an improvement over the early post-pandemic years, when truancy rates topped 40 percent, but still an appalling number. Federal funding for counselors and truancy officers would have been a helpful gesture, as would federal expertise from the Education Department.

Paste poster graffiti mocking how federal officers arrested someone for throwing a sandwich at them.  The Judge didn't agree with the hard core charges they presented.

The places the officers are congregating in are high profile areas, where sometimes, crime does leak into, because of how small the city is and how easy it is to move to these areas for better "targets."  But they are mostly "white" areas, where crime is relatively low, especially violent crime.

Restaurant sales are down as people are avoiding Washington ("‘The city is dead’: D.C. restaurant reservations drop amid federal crackdown," Post) although Trump states the opposite.

“Dozens of DC small businesses, restaurants, and local shops have closed their doors due to the violent crime that has plagued the city. President Trump’s bold leadership will restore our nation’s capital by creating opportunities for businesses to flourish without fear of criminals looting and destroying their property. President Trump is delivering on his promise to make DC safer, which will inherently make D.C, more prosperous,” spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said in a statement.

National Guard at GWU-Foggy Bottom Metrorail Station, Washington, DC.  

Photo: Andrew Leyden, Getty Images.

On the lookout for crime in Union Station.  Reddit photo.

Federal officers swarm on a guy sitting on a park bench in Mount Pleasant.  Reddit photo.

The forces aren't being deployed to the actual high crime areas, in the city pockets in Wards 7 and 8 "East of the River," or impoverished areas of Wards 4, 5, and 6.  From the New York Times article, "Where D.C. Crime Is Bad, Residents Question Trump’s Motives": 

In the Congress Heights neighborhood in the southeast corner of Washington, D.C., where there have been several murders and more than a dozen robberies so far this year, residents have greeted President Trump’s promise of liberation from crime with a mix of skepticism, suspicion and outright derision. It’s not that they don’t believe crime is a problem in the nation’s capital. They know it is.

Federal law enforcement officers patrolling the Georgetown Waterfront.

“If Trump is genuinely concerned about safety of D.C. residents, I would see National Guard in my neighborhood,” said Karen Lake, 62, a lawyer who has lived in Congress Heights since 2017, in the far eastern corner of the diamond-shaped district. “I’m not seeing it, and I don’t expect to see it. I don’t think Trump is bringing in the National Guard to protect Black babies in Southeast.”

“I don’t think Trump is bringing in the National Guard to protect Black babies in Southeast,” a Washingtonian said, as troops patrolled the National Mall. Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times 

They just don’t believe the president cares -- at least not about them. If he did, they asked, why are residents hearing of federal agents roving the whiter areas of 16th Street Northwest but less so in their largely Black neighborhood? Why are National Guard members posing with tourists at the Washington Monument?

Protest against the federal takeover of the DC police department.

This is more about the theater of authoritarianism ("‘Hallmarks of authoritarianism’: Trump banks on loyalists as he wages war on truth," "We’re anti-federal chaos’: Democratic cities prepare for worst after Trump’s tirades against DC and LA," Guardian) and power and intimidation ("Border Patrol Agents Show Up in Force at Newsom Rally," New York Times) in challenging "blue voters" in the cities where Trump loses "bigly" ("Black mayors of cities Trump decries as ‘lawless’ tout significant declines in violent crimes," "Trump’s unprecedented show of force in L.A., Washington is pushing norms, sparking fears," Los Angeles Times).

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Disorder.  Living in DC in the bad times of the 80s and 90s made me quite focused on disorder as an element of public safety.  I joke that it is a fine line between order and disorder that cities should never cross--e.g., decriminalizing "small" crimes ends up being an invitation to keep behaving anti-socially.

-- "Redefining what public safety means: Community Safety Partnership, Los Angeles"

Commenter charlie has made the point that demand for urban living increased so much c. 2000 because of the noticeable decline in crime.

Wall Street Journal article, 6/11/2007, 

about the impact of crime reduction on urban improvement and the attraction of new residents.

The Economist article ("Violent crime is falling rapidly across America,") discusse  in detail the various people-centered anti-crime efforts in Baltimore, which seem to be having great success 

I was reading some great pieces about disorder, triggered by a New York Times article, "What Republicans and Democrats Get Wrong About Crime," and a Paul Krugman interview with Jeff Asher. 

In "It's Time to Talk About America's Disorder Problem" Charles Lehman makes the point that social disorder (the idea of "fixing broken windows") is different from crime per se, but people continue to believe crime is high because of very evident social disorder problems like homeless camping, unkempt areas, graffiti, and petty crime

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There are links to other resources:

-- "Disorder policing to reduce crime: An updated systematic review and meta-analysis," Criminology and Public Policy
-- Special issue, Policing Practice and Policy (open access), Criminology and Public Policy
-- "The Community’s Credible Threat: Effective policing is a prerequisite for preserving order," City Journal
-- Preventing Public Disorder, Urban Institute
-- Center for Problem Oriented Policing, Arizona State University

Independence Day and Civic Engagement when Democracy is in crisis

I don't have the energy to write about this in depth.  SCOTUS ("The Supreme Court Has Kicked the Door Wide Open to Jim Crow–Style Bigotry," The Nation), voter suppression, gerrymandering, authoritarian tendencies in the Republican Party, Trump and insurrection, State Legislature preemption of the ability of local government to act ("States Are Silencing the Will of Millions of Voters," New York Times), etc.

Signing of the Declaration of Independence

Yes, to have democracy you need to practice it.  And I believe our civic institutions need to seize on every opportunity to promote substantive civic engagement.  Which isn't easy, is time consuming, is subject to blowback (e.g., the conservative push against school boards) etc.

Margaret Sullivan's column in the Guardian, "On the Fourth of July, a few reasons to feel encouraged about US democracy," quotes a law professor, Asha Rangappa from Yale:

"Get engaged locally,” urged Yale University’s Asha Rangappa told me recently when I interviewed the former FBI agent for my podcast, American Crisis: Can Journalism Save Democracy? That could mean runing for office, signing up to be a poll worker, volunteering at school, participating in the arts. 

Rangappa wants more Americans to “cultivate the habits of democracy”. Those habits are developed when people leave their social-media echo chambers, get out into their communities, and simply talk to each other.

Yep.

Study: Republican control of state government is bad for democracy

Vox reports on a study by a political science professor at the University of Washington, with the findings that state governments run by Republicans restrict democracy and are less well run compared to states run by Democrats.

-- "Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding," Jacob Grumbach, Department of Political Science, University of Washington

That doesn't surprise me.  Minoritarian government benefits from voter suppression and other manipulation, and a party that in general denigrates government ends up performing badly when in power, "proving" that government failures.

Examples include:

• voter suppression measures
• pre-emption of local government action ("Do legislators want to do your city’s job? These preemption bills suggest they do," Miami Herald, Google search, "Gun groups' success blocking local firearm controls leaves towns desperate to stop massacres," USA Today)
• and how more and more state governments pass legislation promoted by conservative and business interests that is hawked by the American Legislative Exchange Council ("COPY, PASTE, LEGISLATE: You elected them to write new laws. They’re letting corporations do it instead," USA Today).

Professor Grumbach's extends the work by the Vdem Institute, which looks at how parties function at the national level, to the sub-nation level within the US.  (The Vdem study finds that the US Republican Party is amongst the most authoritarian in the West, "Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey – study," Guardian.)

From Vox:

The paper, by University of Washington professor Jake Grumbach, constructs a quantitative measure of democratic health at the state level in the US. He looked at all 50 states between 2000 and 2018 to figure out why some states got more democratic over this period and others less. The conclusions were clear: The GOP is the problem. ... 

Grumbach’s State Democracy Index (SDI) is the first attempt to use a V-Dem-style approach to measure the more subtle ailments afflicting democracy in the United States. Metrics include the extent to which a state is gerrymandered at the federal level, whether it permits same-day voter registration, and whether felons are permitted to vote. He also includes criminal justice indicators, like a state’s Black incarceration rate, that are designed to measure state coercion. 

I would add pre-emption as a factor in the index, definitely.

A day of the highest highs, ends with the lowest of lows

For some time, I've been singing to myself the refrain from the David Bowie song "Cat People," -- "Putting out the fire .... with gasoline! -- given Trump's actions in questioning the election, which he lost, aiming to get states to change their results in his favor, and stoking unfounded dissent and disbelief about the election among his followers.

While Trump is the chief arsonist, providing the gasoline but not the literal match, he has plenty of co-conspirators.

In late October, the Guardian published an article, "Republicans closely resemble autocratic parties in Hungary and Turkey – study," about the results of a study by the Vdem Institute, which found that the US Republican Party is as authoritarian as the worst radical right parties in Europe.

It took about three weeks for the Washington Post to get around to mentioning the study ("GOP leaders’ embrace of Trump’s refusal to concede fits pattern of rising authoritarianism, data shows").

And here we are. Trump calls on people to demonstrate in Washington on January 6th, the day that Congress certifies the election ("‘Be There. Will Be Wild!’: Trump All but Circled the Dates," New York Times).

He holds a rally, calls on demonstrators to march to the Capitol -- after Ammon Bundy, after armed protestors invading the Michigan State Capitol, after insurrectionists planned to take prisoner Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and try her for treason, fomented by Trump's calls to "Liberate Michigan."

And after more than 100 members of the House of Representatives and 13 Senators announce that they will challenge the Electoral College results from many states.

President Donald Trump speaks during a rally protesting the Electoral College certification of Joe Biden as President, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (Pete Marovich, New York Times)

Georgia Senate Win.  Waking up Wednesday morning, learning that Raphael Warnock had already defeated Kelly Loeffler and with strong likelihood that Jon Ossoff was going to defeat David Perdue in Tuesday's Georgia Senate runoff races, for one of the first times since the November election, was I not depressed.  

Brandon Bell/Getty Images.

Sure, Biden won the Presidential election, but across the board--in the House, Senate, and State races, Republicans more than held their own. And the fact that most state legislatures stayed Republican ensures that post-Census redistricting will be shaped by gerrymandering favoring Republicans.

The only saving grace from the election besides Trump's defeat, was the opportunity to still take the Senate, because of runoff elections, because no candidate in either race won 50% of the vote.  

What threw the Georgia races into runoffs was a Libertarian candidate in the Perdue-Ossoff race, and the open election in the other, a special election, resulting in twenty candidates, making it all but impossible for any single candidate to get 50% of the vote.

And having two races on the ballot increased the likelihood of Democratic turnout, when traditionally, turnout falls off in runoff elections.

Around the time that Congress started certifying the election and during Trump's rally, the election for the other seat was called for Jon Ossoff.

A Senate majority for the Democrats means that a Republican Senate can not fully stymie a Democratic agenda.  Although it would be even better if a couple Republicans would cross the line and caucus with Democrats, because the Republicans are so anti-government.

US Capitol enveloped in tear gas in response to Trump anti-election riot, 1/6/2021

Photo: Evelyn Hockstein for the Washington Post

Violent election overthrow demonstrations in Washington, DC.  But at the end of yesterday, I can only believe that the US has ceded all moral authority when it comes to judging or cajoling other nations and their politics.  

So much for Brand America ("Re-branding America," Boston Globe, 2005).

How can the US condemn Chinese imprisoning of demonstrators in Honk Kong ("China compares U.S. Capitol riots with Hong Kong protests," CNBC) or the eradication campaign against Uygur Muslims (("China Undercover" documentary, PBS Frontline) when the President foments his own group of Brown Shirts to perform Nazi type acts comparable to Kristillnacht and the Reichstag fire ("The True Story of the Reichstag Fire and the Nazi Rise to Power," Smithsonian Magazine) at the US Capitol.

What Trump fomented was no different than the anti-government protests and violent overthrowing of governments that the US criticizes (or creates, e.g., Iran, Chile, etc.)

The very first week of my first year at college, in a class we had to go see the documentary "Battle of Chile," which covered the fall of the Socialist government in Chile, which had happened 5 years before.  It's violent and brutal.  I had no idea that my country could be so brutal in supporting the overthrow of a duly elected government and being just fine with outright killing of citizens of Chile (but also the US and other countries).

So was yesterday.  

Supporters of President Donald Trump climb the west wall of the the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

There should be a reckoning.  Of course, given the Republicans authoritarian turn and all the amping up by Trump the last two months, abetted by elected officials and other stakeholders, yesterday shouldn't be a surprise.

Most of the Senators who intended to challenge, state by state, Electoral College results, were chastened by the attempt at insurrection and backed off.  But few of the Republican Representatives from the House backed off, but without a Senator to support their challenge, their challenges went nowhere.  

There is talk of removing Trump from office, using the 25th Amendment although the likelihood of the Cabinet stepping up is minimal, even if VP Pence was himself under attack yesterday.

Police response "inadequate."  Wow, did the US Capitol Police f* up or what?  Many people have pointed out that the response by law enforcement to last summer's BLM protests in DC was much more brutal.  There is video yesterday of Capitol Police letting demonstrators through the fences and taking selfies with protesters.

1.  This protest, including the assault on the Capitol was organized on conservative social media for many days in advance ("Before rioters stormed the US Capitol, Trump supporters called for violence online," CNN).  

Don't DC's Metropolitan Police Department and the US Capitol Police (which is controlled by Congress) have "intelligence" capacity?  Shouldn't they have known?  Did these police departments reject intelligence that could have been provided by the Department of Homeland Security and other federal law enforcement agencies.

2.  Because of the backlash from last summer's BLM demonstrations, DC discouraged federal law enforcement from organizing for yesterday.  DC failed.  They should have asked federal law enforcement agencies to plan and organize "just in case."  These officers should have been held at the ready, with the ability to act immediately.

Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington. As Congress prepares to affirm President-elect Joe Biden's victory, thousands of people have gathered to show their support for President Donald Trump and his claims of election fraud.(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

3.  The Capitol Police totally blew it.  And probably and sadly, there need to be better preventative measures in place other than easily overturned temporary fences less than 4 feet high.  Many many people should lose their jobs over this, including the police officers who consorted with the demonstrators.

According to reports, DC MPD and Capitol Police communicated beforehand and the USCP said they were fine.  I've organized events in DC where we needed to close the street.  You have to go before a massive committee, including representatives from the police, fire, EMS, homeland security and other agencies.  You get grilled.  You have to provide a plan beforehand and then modify it in response.  You can go through many iterations before approval is granted.

Clearly, the USCP security and response plan was nowhere near adequate ("Capitol Breach Draws Sharp Condemnation of Law Enforcement," New York Times; "Capitol breach prompts urgent questions about security failures," Washington Post).

4.  DC MPD and related agencies should have planned for the capacity to arrest large numbers of people.  Few people were arrested because "the police departments didn't have the manpower" to arrest them, but instead focused on clearing the Capitol.  WTF?  No repercussions encourages further unrest.

Police sure were prepared during the BLM protests ("D.C. Police Used Tear Gas, Arrested More Than 40 People During Black Lives Matter Protests In Adams Morgan," DCist; "D.C. Protesters Hail The Hero Of Swann St., Who Sheltered Them From Arrest," NPR).

Police line in DC in June during the George Floyd protests.

Evy Mages, Washingtonian Magazine