We clear now? He took over D.C. on a lie. This is tyranny.

[bigtree]

..he's escalated from kidnapping and jailing migrants, and anyone who looks remotely like a Mexican or Latin American, to flexing his autocratic power against American citizens.

He's using the same tactic that he's gotten away with, using unsupported and undocumented claims about 'violent criminals taking over' to justify his autocratic, paternalistic, anti-democratic evisceration of the little that existed of D.C. citizen's right to self-determination (40% of population is black), and is now emboldened to lord his invented authority over the rest of the country.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Monday he was deploying 800 National Guard troops to Washington and putting the city's police department under federal control, an extraordinary assertion of presidential power in the nation's capital.

Trump's move, which bypassed the city's elected leaders, was emblematic of his approach to his presidency, wielding executive authority in ways that have little precedent in modern U.S. history and in defiance of political norms.

The president cast his actions as necessary to "rescue" Washington from what he described as a wave of lawlessness, despite statistics showing that violent crime hit a 30-year low in 2024 and has continued to decline this year.

"I'm deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, D.C.," Trump told a news conference at the White House. "Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/trump-takes-over-dc-police-in-extraordinary-move-deploys-national-guard-in-capital/ar-AA1KkdEa

Trump also said the administration was going “to look at” overturning DC Home Rule – which gives certain congressional powers regarding the governance of the district to local government entities, including the mayor and city council.

“We have to run DC. This has to be the best-run place in the country, not the worst-run place in the country,” Trump said Wednesday.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-zeroes-in-on-federal-takeover-of-dc-while-city-officials-remain-deferential-to-him/ar-AA1KhVJN

Trump Warns Federal Takeover Of DC 'Will Go Further' Into Other Cities

President Donald Trump warned that other U.S. cities are "very bad" as he declared a public safety emergency in Washington, D.C., triggering a federal takeover of the city's police department. He hinted the effort could expand, saying, "We're not going to lose our cities over this," and adding, "This will go further."

He was clear he saw his action as a test run for other American cities, saying “if our capital is dirty, our whole country is dirty.”

Specifically, Trump focused his ire on the blue cities that didn’t vote for him, naming New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland and Chicago while ignoring the crime rate in red cities like St. Louis and New Orleans.

He offered no metrics or measurements for what would result in troops on the nation’s streets and the White House offered no additional details.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article311666690.html


my take:

Trump set to takeover nation's capital, seizing the city on a lie - Moving on now from threatening migrants to Americans

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20550547

[Heidi]

1. He hasn't "moved on." He's multitasking..

[Diamond_Dog]

2. This is INDEED tyranny!

[B.See]

34. The TAKEAWAY being, he can do practically ANYTHING

based upon an outright lie and FABRICATION:

take over cities
arrest and deport legal immigrants
arrest and deport US citizens
deploy the armed forces
abduct people off the streets using masked, unidentified THUGS
reverse integration, and inclusion
discriminate against and demonize minorities
foment racial animosity
manipulate the stock markets
profit from scams and backroom deals
undermine public broadcasting
curtail freedom of expression
deny and dispute elections
attempt a coup
impose tariffs
end jobs
hobble and sabotage government agencies
dismantling public education
extort colleges and universities
shake down and extort the media
invade a country
withhold disaster relief
undermine response to a pandemic
obscure the truth
erase or rewrite history undermine the Constitution
undermine democracy
incite hate, division, chaos and discord
hobble NATO
bring about the rise of fascism
increase tensions / conflict between nations

DECLARE MARTIAL LAW

all of which and MORE he's already done...

on the basis of a FUCKING LIE.

[newdeal2]

3. He tried to seize the country over a big lie in 2020

No reason to doubt he will do what he pleases. He lives in a fact-free world surrounded by sycophants and enablers.

[2naSalit]

4. It is...

As far as I can tell.

[Heidi]

5. Also: EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN! EPSTEIN!

With thanks to Scrivener 7:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220552124

[bigtree]

10. this is more than a distraction

On April 28, Trump issued an 879-page executive order (EO) commanding Pam Bondi and Pete Hegseth to work with Kristi Noem and other agencies and “increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement.”

The Legal Defense Fund states Trump’s EO directs federal resources to “promote aggressive policing tactics and further militarize local law enforcement agencies, make it more difficult to hold officers accountable for misconduct and wield the power of prosecution as a threat.” Jim Jordan opines in a June 14 essay that Trump’s EO “calls for a militarized police service in the US, one that essentially operates under martial law” (CommonWealth Beacon).

Ten different independent and reliable sources document how Trump 2.0’s administration is systematically dismantling democratic safeguards that rely on civil governance. They include: 1) police in riot gear dispersing protesters who are using their First Amendment rights to oppose ICE raids, 2) National Guard troops being deployed to quell peaceful protests, 3) framing citizen protests as an “insurrection” and a “national security threat,” 4) federal agents arresting citizens whose immigration-related cases have been dismissed by judges, 5) expanding and creating detention camps, 6) heavily armed and masked men abducting individuals without warrants or identification, 7) providing police with military-grade equipment, 8) closing down the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and 9) eliminating the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

https://www.newtondailynews.com/opinion/column/2025/07/30/opinion-is-the-us-heading-to-a-police-state-trump-executive-order-and-project-2025-raise-alarms/

Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said he is concerned that President Donald Trump will use the unrest in Los Angeles as a "pretext" for "imposing martial law."

"As Trump moves to expand military deployments, possibly using protests in L.A. as a pretext for more broadly silencing free speech or even imposing martial law, I'll be reintroducing reforms to the Insurrection Act that check potential abuse or overreach," Blumenthal posted to X, formerly Twitter, late Monday.

"I first introduced Insurrection Act reforms before the election, fearing that future misuse of the military might only inflame conflict & threaten key rights. Now that nightmare seems imminently, fearfully real. Congress must act," Blumenthal posted to X.

https://www.newsweek.com/richard-blumenthal-reveals-trump-martial-law-fear-2083275

[Heidi]

35. I think's it can be both a distraction

and a further descent into tyranny. On 🇺🇸 tyranny: One non-American person I know said, “the signal for me is when they start to attack white artists and white homosexuals. then we all know which state we are in and anybody can be the next one.” That whiteness rings the alarm bell more urgently than brownness or immigration status speaks volumes. Sorry for the (somewhat) unrelated rant but I can’t get that comment out of my head.

[customerserviceguy]

6. Anyone notice

that he didn't go off on this tirade until "Big Balls" got mugged?

[SheltieLover]

8. Pls see #7 below

[bigtree]

11. Miller likely made a big deal about how it was the perfect pretext

...for this abomination of democracy.

[customerserviceguy]

14. Miller is definitely

Trumpworld's version of Rasputin.

[SheltieLover]

7. Makes me wonder whether big balls' carjacking was staged?

[customerserviceguy]

13. Possibly

but we have to avoid calling everything staged. My blood boils when I hear other presumably reasonable people say that the Butler shooting was a setup. There is no fucking way chickenshit Trump would ever even let a highly trained sniper try to "wing" him on the ear, much less an amateurish kid. We sound like 9/11 "truthers" when we talk like that.

My theory is that Trump watches a lot of Fox News, and because of Jesse Walters' interview with the DOGE team a month or two ago (yes, I did watch a story about it) they have been covering the assault fairly heavily. It feeds into their whole city/country divisiveness, the whole "cites are shit" narrative, so they run with it.

[LeftInTX]

24. It doesn't matter. Things happen in every city. Trump would have found something else.

He could started this over a needle in a park.
Maybe he thinks the world will be more sympathetic to "big balls" than a "needle in a park"?

[Angrboda]

9. Na Trioblid

This sort of thing worked out very well in Belfast.

[Initech]

12. Can we please eject these scumbags from the White House now?

This would be the end of any other president. It's time the same rules apply to him and this batshit insane and psychotically evil version of the GOP.

[0rganism]

15. The old order has crumbled away, what comes next is anyone's guess and everyone's concern

"Rule of law" has been displaced by "rule of one man". The willingness of so many in our population to embrace a Dionysian blood revel did surprise me, but Americans have been here before. Perhaps this can be our last, but "never again" would need to be backed by actual social guardrails. We cannot rely on our laws to protect us -- they simply become the first victims to our most powerful lawless predators who stand free from the consequences of ignoring them. Such is our downfall.

Now we burn.

[Magoo48]

21. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like US Americans will allow themselves to be inconvenienced enough

To take significant action on behalf of their own freedoms. Difficult sacrifices are required from all of us to come out of this a wiser and freer nation. What we are now seeing is absolutely unprecedented in our own history. Sustained action Is required on multiple fronts, including a fierce commitment to do whatever is necessary to remain free. Will enough of us get there in time; it remains to be seen.

[0rganism]

29. We'll take strong decisive actions when the obvious inconvenience of not doing them outweighs that of doing them

The last 80 years have been infected with a gradually-spreading false confidence rooted in the prior sacrifices of others -- a confidence that our laws were a sort of imperfect bulwark against oppression that we would work to continuously improve, that they did contain flaws and injustice, but those could be addressed without tearing the whole thing down. There was a sense that we were building a "more perfect union", well that's gone now. There's a solid 30% ride-or-die fascist commitment in the population, that's more than enough per Hitler.

[Quanto Magnus]

16. This is preparation for Marshal Law

so he can suspend elections. He's already made it know his supporters won't have to vote anymore. He outright said it during his campaign.

[Totally Tunsie]

30. Martial law

[Quanto Magnus]

37. lol

yeah was not paying attention to my spelling...

[Heidi]

36. How is this not *undeclared* martial law?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/martial%20law

[LetMyPeopleVote]

17. Maddow Blog-Trump to deploy the National Guard to D.C., place local police under federal control

If crime rates in the nation’s capital are already at their lowest levels in decades, why is the White House launching yet another power grab?

Fascist Trump to deploy the National Guard to D.C., place local police under federal control.
If crime rates in the nation’s capital are already at their lowest levels in decades, why is the White House launching yet another power grab?
www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— hateGOP (@hategop.bsky.social) 2025-08-11T17:57:53.893Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-deploy-national-guard-dc-place-local-police-federal-control-rcna224303

As for how, exactly, he intends to do this, NBC News reported, “Trump announced this morning that he will federalize the Washington, D.C., police and deploy National Guard troops in an effort to fight crime.”

Trump announces he's placing the DC police department "under direct federal control" and deploying the National Guard in the city

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-08-11T14:42:53.334Z

As far as the White House is concerned, this is apparently the first in a series of related steps. After referencing New York City, Baltimore and Oakland by name, the president told the White House press corps in reference to his new gambit, “This will go further. We’ll starting very strongly with D.C.”

Crime rates in New York City, Baltimore and Oakland have already sharply improved, and while Trump has repeatedly insisted that crime in nation’s capital is “out of control,” in reality, crime in D.C. has dropped..

...

As for the latest announcement, Trump also took the opportunity to share some related thoughts about how his newly deployed forces would treat criminal criminal suspects.

"You knock the hell out of them. It's the only language they understand ... you spit and we hit. And they get hit real hard ... now they are allowed to do whatever they want" -- Trump on the police response to crime in DC

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-08-11T14:50:56.398Z

As for whether any of this is legal, The Washington Post reported, "Under the Home Rule Act, President Donald Trump can assume control of D.C. police for 48 hours if he 'determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist which require the use of the Metropolitan Police force for Federal purposes.' The takeover may be extended with approval of the members of Congress who oversee D.C. affairs. Any request of over 30 days must be passed into law."

The presidential announcement, in other words, was the first step, not the last, and the legal and political disputes that will soon follow are likely to be dramatic. Watch this space.

[Mr.WeRP]

18. Garland

He had one job to do and he failed us. You aren’t going to get any help to remove Trump through any legal process at this point. He has Congress and the Courts and soon will control local elections. Anything he can’t control locally, he will deligitimize, and others will back him. Stopping the coup now requires a full on revolution which he is attempting to bait. If people engage him, he will use the full force of the military to put them down. What do you suggest should be done now?

[Orrex]

19. And fuck every member of the Nat'l Guard who obeyed this unlawful order

[orangecrush]

20. Kick

[mdbl]

22. The only thing that makes the capitol dirty is the trump administration.

[Efilroft Sul]

23. Occupation without representation.

Last edited Mon Aug 11, 2025, 09:29 PM - Edit history (1)

[mr715]

25. Whole revolution fought over this stuff.

Alas, here we are. Think he'll take away DC's electoral votes? Or suggest it.

[Scrivener7]

26. We were clear years ago.

[LonePirate]

27. The 2A crowd is sure quiet about Trump's tyranny. I thought the 2A was supposed to protect us from this.

Of course it’s nothing but crickets from the 2A crowd and he takes over another city whose inhabitants are majority non-white.

[Initech]

28. Enough is enough! Fuck MAGA, they should all be dragged out of the White House in handcuffs.

This is crossing the line.

[gab13by13]

31. If we ever win back government

no more moving on, damn straight look back, hold every one of the s.o.b.'s accountable, even the janitors.

[Initech]

32. We need to make the Nuremberg trials look like a practice run!