To say that our nation’s capital has a crime problem is an understatement.
However, you wouldn’t know it, judging by the outcry coming from progressives against President Trump’s federal takeover of law enforcement in Washington D.C. last week.
Specifically, the president sent in the National Guard to patrol the streets via Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which allows Trump to assume emergency control of the capital’s police department.
If you’re like me and you’re following the most inflammatory social media users you can, you have it on good authority that this is the beginning of a fascist takeover of America...or some such nonsense.
Indeed, the rage against the President’s federal intervention has been outsized and over the top by top progressives.
At this point, you have to wonder what the goal is for the Democratic Party. It’s one thing to oppose Donald Trump just because he’s Donald Trump, but it’s quite another to continue supporting some of the worst political stances known to man just for opposition’s sake.
I can see why Democrats might not care about the optics of supporting sanctuary cities and allowing the nation’s capital to be overrun with shootings, car jackings and all manner of social degeneracy. After all, there’s always going to be mobs of people holding signs that are angrier at the Trump Administration than they are the presence of the most dangerous elements in local neighborhoods.
And yet, mainstream media outlets are always game to support Democratic foolishness and give the impression that wanting safer cities is an act of great moral and political evil.
That’s worth voters thinking about, because once President Trump is gone, the problems of Washington D.C. and the violent crimes that plagues blue cities generally, will persist, as they have for decades.
How long will the “vote blue no matter who” folks be content with being victimized in their own cities, be afraid to walk past vagrants and potentially dangerous homeless people wandering their neighborhoods?
On the surface, it’s easy to see why the liberal minded would look at what the Trump Administration is doing with the healthy amount of skepticism.
When you don’t live in these areas and your physical safety isn’t compromised on a daily basis, none of this seems justifiable.
When you live in an area that is well policed or you have the luxury of living in rural areas, it’s easy to misinterpret what the administration is doing as a draconian move for control and cruelty for cruelty’s sake.
It’s a truism in life that the only way that liberals will understand why what Trump is doing is necessary is if reality smacks them in the face or, in the case of what’s going on in many of the cities, a dangerous individual busts their window and snatches them out of their car.
And it isn’t just the rampant crime and danger of the nation’s capitol that is concerning and worth outside intervention either. The city is also plagued by vast corruption and embarrassing incompetence on the part of its leadership.
As far as embarrassing moments go, none were more cringe inducing than the current Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith, who was baffled after being asked what the chain of command looked like for police now that the feds were on board.
“Can you tell us what the chain of command is now?” a reporter asked during a press conference Tuesday morning.
“What does that mean?” Smith responded, before Mayor Muriel Bowser jumped in to answer for her and save face.
It was a predictable answer from the department’s former chief equity officer, a position that should never have existed in the first place. Still, a DEI hire is small potatoes when you consider that there’s good evidence that the city has manufactured “improved” crime statistics, mostly by not responding to calls and “adjusting” the numbers.
This is to say nothing of the city having lost the accreditation of its crime lab due to malfeasance and incompetence, so who knows how many miscarriages of justice have happened since.
As I’m fond of pointing out, multiple political realities can be true at once when it comes to the situation in DC. On one hand, the Trump Administration needs as many strong political victories as it can get ahead of the midterms, during a time of foreign instability, scandal and an economy that isn’t booming the way they promised.
On the other hand, Washington D.C. has been a crime infested cesspool of scum, villainy, homelessness and corruption for as long as I’ve been alive.
For progressives to pretend as if their favorite politicians have not siezed upon a crisis, used it to make political hay while also having a rationale for doing so is disingenuous to say the least.
My only hope is that Trump succeeds, however briefly, in improving the state of things while he has the reins.
The optimist in me hopes that just as the danger of DC had to smack some in the face to bring them back to reality and reason, maybe living in a city where you don’t have to fear your neighbor for a change might have a positive effect.