{"id":64872,"date":"2025-08-13T21:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T21:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/64872\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T21:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T21:09:09","slug":"why-is-trump-deploying-national-guard-troops-to-washington-dc-cas-mudde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/64872\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Trump deploying national guard troops to Washington DC? | Cas Mudde"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a dangerous new escalation of his authoritarian rule, Donald Trump<\/a> has placed the police of Washington DC<\/a> under federal control and announced that he will deploy the national guard to the country\u2019s capital. According to the president, crime in the city is \u201cout of control\u201d \u2013 no matter that crime numbers<\/a> are down significantly, including for violent crimes. But, of course, this power grab is not really about facts, it is about distraction and perception, and a chance to reconnect and refocus his base.<\/p>\n

Like all the other outrageous things Trump has been doing in the last weeks, the DC takeover is, first and foremost, an attempt to deflect from the Jeffrey Epstein case. As previously demonstrated<\/a> by his demand to rename the NFL team to the (racist) Washington Redskins, his attacks on the Wall Street Journal, or his calls to prosecute former president Barack Obama (\u201cBarack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him?<\/a>\u201d) that he will do anything to get the Epstein case out of the political and public debate.<\/p>\n

But it is not just a deflection, it is also an attempt to bring the attention of his base back to the core of their bond with Trump, namely authoritarianism and nativism (which are, as always with the far right, closely connected). There is a clear pattern in the cities Trump links to disorder and violence. Cities like Baltimore, DC and Oakland are broadly identified as Black cities in the US, while cities like Los Angeles (Hispanic) and New York (the quintessential melting pot) are also often excluded from the \u201creal\u201d America in rightwing narratives.<\/p>\n

Of course, in the racist mind, Black and multiracial is connected to crime, danger, disorder \u2013 as are \u201cthe city\u201d and \u201curban\u201d centers (both deeply racialized concepts in the US). This racist fear and rejection of the multiracial city has a very long history in the country, but also for Trump himself too. Just remember his response to the infamous Central Park Five<\/a>, a multiracial group of teenagers accused of raping a white female jogger in 1989. Before the facts were known, Trump published an open letter in four local newspapers, in which he described New York City as a city out of control, called for the teenage boys to be \u201cexecuted\u201d, and demanded that the city\u2019s leaders \u201cBring back the death penalty. Bring back our police<\/a>.\u201d Attacks on multiracial cities were also a major part of his deeply racist 2024 campaign. For example, he claimed that Philadelphia was \u201cravaged by bloodshed<\/a>\u201d, and compared Detroit<\/a> to a developing country.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s aversion for multiracial cities was undoubtedly strengthened by the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, which were successfully \u201cvilified<\/a>\u201d in the rightwing media \u2013 today, only 22%<\/a> of Republicans support the BLM movement, compared to 84% of Democrats. Moreover, multiracial cities vote disproportionately for the Democrats, which is another sore point. And it is another crucial aspect of Trump\u2019s authoritarian power grab.<\/p>\n

By targeting multiracial cities like DC and Los Angeles, Trump not only plays into the widespread racist association of these cities with crime and violence, but he also strengthens the belief that these \u201cDemocrat-run cities<\/a>\u201d are \u201cout of control\u201d. The message to his base is clear: Democratic rule in the (Black) cities is \u201cweak\u201d and endangers the (white) \u201cHeartland\u201d \u2013 all, of course, ultimately linked to the alleged \u201copen border\u201d policies of former president Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

Finally, the power grab is part of a broader agenda to create a deeply authoritarian and personalized state, in which the monopoly of violence rests exclusively in the hands of Trump. If implemented, the new budget<\/a> will transform the US into a deportation state, centered around the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice)<\/a>, which is increasingly operating as a presidential militia that is not just above the law<\/a> but also above other<\/a> <\/a>law enforcement and even military agencies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is crucial that liberal democratic actors take this authoritarian power grab seriously \u2013 without letting it distract them, or the wider public, from the Epstein case. As long as the courts still work, at least to some extent, the Trump administration should be challenged in court \u2013 despite initial setbacks<\/a>, the court case over Trump\u2019s power grab in California remains open. Media have a responsibility to inform the public of the real facts, including real-time factchecking<\/a> of Trump speeches.<\/p>\n

But, most importantly, media and politics must stop treating the various actions as \u201cincidents\u201d and connect the dots \u2013 for themselves and for the broader public. While each individual action might not be anti-democratic, they are all connected and together constitute a clear and consistent attack on democracy. And while all the institutions still stand, they represent less and less the liberal democratic values they were founded on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a dangerous new escalation of his authoritarian rule, Donald Trump has placed the police of Washington DC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-64872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}