By JOHN LESLIE
In the midst of the military occupation of Washington, D.C., Trump issued another Executive Order (EO) that further escalates the use of the military against domestic civilian populations. Particularly alarming is the creation of a “standing National Guard quick reaction force,” which could be deployed nationally at the order of the president. Since the deployment of National Guard troops to D.C., Trump has been threatening to send troops to Oakland, Baltimore, and Chicago, all cities with Black mayors, based on erroneous claims of a “crime emergency.”
During the EO signing ceremony on Aug. 25, Trump told the press that “a lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we like a dictator.’” He quickly followed this remark by assuring the reporters, “I’m not a dictator. I’m a man with great common sense.” However, at a cabinet meeting the next day, Trump again referred to the term “dictator” while denying that there might be any limitations on his “right” to send troops to Chicago: “Not that I don’t have … the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States.’“
All of this comes in the context of the massive expansion of ICE, Trump’s unaccountable political police, coupled with the construction of prison camps intended for the detention of immigrant workers. As we wrote previously, “Trump has taken the tools given to him by past administrations and directed them into a mass deportation regime using a myriad of federal agencies, including the FBI, ATF, and the Postal Inspection Service to augment ICE and Border Patrol efforts.”
What is in the new EO?
- Using the pretext of a so-called “crime emergency,” the EO creates a specialized D.C. National Guard Unit: “The Secretary of Defense shall, subject to the availability of appropriations and applicable law, immediately create and begin training, manning, hiring, and equipping a specialized unit within the District of Columbia National Guard, subject to activation under Title 32 of the United States Code, that is dedicated to ensuring public safety and order in the Nation’s capital.”This D.C. unit, along with state National Guard units nationwide, “will be trained to assist federal, state, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances.”
- Additionally, “the Secretary of Defense shall designate an appropriate number of each State’s trained National Guard members to be reasonably available for rapid mobilization for such purposes. In addition, the Secretary of Defense shall ensure the availability of a standing National Guard quick reaction force that shall be resourced, trained, and available for rapid nationwide deployment.
- The EO also directs the National Park Service to increase the size of the DC Federal Park Police.
- The EO includes a crackdown on DC public housing, directing the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to investigate violations and “include consideration of the provisions of such agreements that require housing providers to maintain safe, decent, and sanitary conditions or to restrict tenants who engage in criminal activity that threatens health, safety, and the right to peaceful enjoyment for other tenants, including engaging in drug distribution, violent criminal activity, and domestic violence.”
- The EO also gives the Attorney General the right to review D.C. Metro Police General Orders and to request that the mayor make “updates and modifications to such orders as the Attorney General determines are necessary to address the crime emergency and ensure public order and safety.”
Writer Hamilton Nolan explains, “This executive order is meant to create a standing military force that will go wherever Donald Trump tells them to go and do what he tells them to do. It is meant to smooth over any bureaucratic, legalistic, or technical objections to this sort of dictatorial use of force. It is meant to see to it that Donald Trump can point to any city and say ‘Send in the troops’ and have that happen, notwithstanding the opposition of any governors or mayors or disgruntled military officers or stray courts.”
Fake crime claims
Despite Trump’s claims, violent crime rates have declined since a spike during the COVID pandemic, with homicide rates down significantly—a 14.9% drop from 2023 to 2024. Homicides, aggravated assaults, sexual assaults, robberies, and motor vehicle thefts have all shown significant declines from their peaks at the tail-end of the pandemic.
Trump’s verbal assault on Washington, D.C., calling the city dirty, crime-infested, and dangerous, is in line with conservative talking points that vilify urban areas. According to Trump, the situation in D.C. is “becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness, and we’re getting rid of the slums, too. … I know it’s not politically correct. You’ll say, ‘Oh, so terrible.’ No, we’re getting rid of the slums where they live.”
According to The Hill, “Violent crime was recorded at 926 per 100,000 in the nation’s capital, which is governed by Mayor Muriel Bowser (D). Officials said violent crime is down by 27 percent and at a 30-year low after reaching all-time highs during the pandemic.” In contrast, a “fact” sheet issued by the White House claims that “the local D.C. government has lost control of public safety in the city,” with a “violent crime rate that is higher than some of the most dangerous places in the world.”
Here comes the police state
Civil libertarians and community activists are rightly concerned about this unnecessary and dangerous use of the military in U.S. cities. Retired Maj. Gen. Randy Manner spoke out against this new development, saying, “The administration is trying to desensitize the American people to get used to American armed soldiers in combat vehicles patrolling the streets of America.”
Trump’s use of the military for domestic policing violates the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which limits the use of the military for domestic policing. Since taking office, Trump has dramatically increased the size and scope of ICE. A previous Trump EO, Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens, further militarizes local and state police forces, providing more excess military equipment to police and shielding them from accountability. Trump’s desire to use the police and military against his perceived enemies poses a very real danger to oppressed nationalities, opponents of state repression, and the unions.
Trump is creating the framework for an integrated, unaccountable, and loyal police and military force capable of waging a campaign of domestic counter-insurgency and repression on a national scale—a repression that would be unprecedented in the US. Writing in The New York Times, Ezra Klein wrote, “… that’s the other picture I see—the one that keeps coming into clear focus. Not Trump cleaning up crisis or disorder, but Trump creating crisis and disorder so he can build what he has wanted to build: an authoritarian state, a military or a paramilitary that answers only to him—that puts him in total control.”
Klein continued, “ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have long been the most rogue, renegade and certainly pro-Trump police agencies in the federal government. So I think Trump sees those two as the most loyal to him. Also, obviously, the mass deportations are going to ensure that those two agencies remain relevant throughout his administration.” So, what is to stop Trump, or a successor, from using ICE and National Guard quick reaction forces, in conjunction with local police, against police brutality protesters, Palestine Solidarity activists, or against labor strikes?
Fighting back
Building a fightback against Trump also raises the question of the Democratic Party. The Democratic establishment has been a weak and tepid “opposition” to Trump’s all-out assault on democracy, unions, immigrants, LGBTQ people, and women’s rights. One only has to watch the nauseating attacks on the unhoused and trans people by politicians like Gavin Newsom to know that the Democrats are just another set of enforcers for capitalism.
Lawsuits and politicians won’t save us. The power is in our hands through working-class methods of struggle like strikes, mass action protests, boycotts, and independent political campaigns.
Stopping Trump’s authoritarian ambitions will require a united fightback on multiple fronts. The democratic mass mobilization of all sectors of society—youth, oppressed nationalities, and the unions in particular—is an urgent task. This must be a combined struggle for democratic rights and due process, against legal ethnic cleansing under the guise of immigration control, for the abolition of ICE, and in defense of the working class. There must be a united and vocal rejection of authoritarianism.
