Over the last few weeks, the topic of how best to deal with the crime epidemic has been at the top of the headlines and at the forefront of our political discourse.
Mostly this is because of the Trump Administration taking the leading role in pushing local governments to do what they should have been doing about crime years prior.
And, also because the White House has been posting memes about waging war on blue cities and changing the Department of Defense to the Department of War, a rebranding that, while hilarious to me, is going to cost millions for no immediate improvement in fixing the world’s problems.
But to the point, the considerable success the president has had in using the National Guard in Washington DC has emboldened him to threaten repeating that process in other places that are rife with crime and discontent.
On a purely political level, it’s an issue that the Trump Administration can win without question, even if the legality of the maneuver is on some unstable footing.
As far as the political optics of using federal forces to fight crime, Trump is actually doing something politically astute. One of the things that progressives have argued is that if the Trump Administration is truly concerned about crime, then they should be sending troops into red states as well.
Of course, they neglect to mention that most of the crime in these red states comes from the blue cities within them, but that’s too nuanced a take for their ilk to consider.
Still, Trump potentially sending in the troops to blood red places like Louisiana and Mississippi would cut off one of the left’s best arguments and grant some relief to the governors there.
But the trouble is, should the executive branch be engaging in this sort of behavior in the first place?
As you might imagine, Democrats don’t think so and on the merits of the feds sticking their nose where they ought not be, I’m inclined to agree.
While I approve of the president’s stance of stamping out crime-infested areas, as a matter of good federalism, he ought not be doing it.
Because put simply, it’s really not his job to be trying to police the crime in states where it should be handled by local authorities in the first place.
Of course, I find myself wanting to turn on my own principles and encourage Trump’s war on these places when I see the nonsense they’re engaging in.
Many of the people who live in these areas have taken to the street to decry the presence of federal forces and to push back against the idea that they are necessary at all. In essence, they’re supporting criminality and denying their very real problems just to spite an administration they don’t like.
An in a place like Chicago, seeing this utter lack of self-preservation is maddening, to say the least.
Just so we’re all on the same page, Chicago is the place where dozens of people have been getting shot every weekend for well over a decade. If you can believe it, Trump’s threats have inspired the worst elements of the city to play tough and threaten the administration for attempting to stop their reign of criminality.
According to one of my favorite news sites, the great and powerful World Star Hip Hop, Chicago’s finest have warned the feds to stay out of the city or else face the wrath of criminals with switches.
I for one would love to see the worst of Chicago arm themselves and try to take on the federal government. That would be a hoot.
If nothing else, it saves the Trump Administration the trouble of having to actually look for Chicago’s troublemakers and expedite the entire process before it drags on too long.
For the sake of my own sanity, I’m going to choose to believe that the rabble-rousers we’re seeing in the streets, holding signs and threatening to side with the criminals aren’t actually resident of these troubled cities at all.
Because I can’t imagine that if you’ve lived in these blue cities for years, watching windows get broken, people getting stabbed in the neck randomly on trains like we just had in Charlotte and some areas being no man’s lands, that you wouldn’t welcome a helping hand.
Unfortunately, despite my own petty hope that President Trump shows all these places who’s boss, states do have their own sovereignty.
Without a solid rationale, such as widespread silver unrest, or the protection of public property, President Trump is on shaky legal grounds to simply use the military within states that aren’t under his immediate purview in the same way that Washington DC is.
As a matter of fact, if he isn’t careful, he could run the risk of overplaying his hand and land in real illegal and constitutional jeopardy…even if it’s the right thing to do in areas that could pass for Gotham City.
As with many things in the political arena, a few things can be true at once.
I can approve of the government taking action where defiant blue governors refused to for the sake of citizen safety.
However, there is always a danger of overreach and setting precedents that subsequent administrations will feel comfortable using to their advantage once the reins of power inevitably switches hands.
On the other hand, the government has already gone rogue in cramming down mandates and using the full force of state authorities to destroy people’s way of life and force an experimental vaccine on them.
But as a matter of principle, if we on the right thought that that sort of action was tyrannical, then we must be skeptical of the Trump Administration doing similar things, even if they make more sense and can be justified by homicide statistics.