High
atop the current list of right-wing talking points is crime in
America’s cities, particularly ones governed by Democrats. Conservatives
link the issue to everything from illegal immigration and border
security to stricter gun control, law-enforcement spending cuts, and the
refusal to employ National Guard troops. Some blame city crime on
Democrats who want to help Ukraine fight Russia on the far edge of Europe instead of admitting trouble in their districts at home.
Since at least the 2016 presidential election, conservatives have pointed to crime rates in Chicago
as evidence that Democratic and minority leaders there are purposefully
soft on crime and are wrong in their refusals to deploy the National
Guard or using controversial policing methods like stop-and-frisk. Republicans also say that in other cities where Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 turned riotous—sometimes through instigation by white supremacists—more Democratic governors should have sent in their Guard troops, as Trump did, controversially in Washington, D.C.
So,
on Tuesday, in a speech meant for the ears of Republican primary
voters, Trump said the next American president should send the National
Guard to Chicago. That would require, at minimum, invoking the
Insurrection Act, which is supposed to be reserved for natural disaster
or civil violence “to such an extent that the constituted authorities of
the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.” But
it also would ignore the Illinois governor, the 1878 Posse Comitatus
Act, and the advice of top National Guard generals who strongly resist
federalization. (We’ve been through this debate before.)
And that’s how extreme partisan politics could change the U.S. military forever, if Americans want.
“This
cannot go on anymore,” Trump said. “Every other approach has been
considerably tried, and they tried the weak approach, they’ve been
trying it for years... It’s not working. It’s time to go a different
direction. And only one option remains. The next president needs to send
the National Guard to the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago until
safety can be restored.”
The troops would be mobilized not just
against criminals and disturbers of the peace, but against homeless and
mentally unstable people, he said.
“We have to take back our
streets and public spaces from the homeless, the drug addicted, and the
dangerously deranged. What’s happened to our cities?” he said. “We’re
living in such a different country for one primary reason: there is no
longer respect for the law and there certainly is no order. Our country
is now a cesspool of crime.”
And who is to blame? Not the pandemic, which closed many homeless shelters and housing, or a nationwide housing shortage stoked by income inequality and local zoning policies. No; “We have blood, death, and suffering on a scale once unthinkable because of the Democrat [sic] Party’s effort to destroy and dismantle law enforcement all throughout America. It has to stop, and it has to stop now.”
Then Trump said he would create a crime-free society.
“We
believe that every citizen of every background should be able to walk
anywhere in this nation at any hour of the day without even the thought
of being victimized by violent crime,” he said. To build this
utopia, America’s leaders must “be tough and be nasty and be mean, if we
have to.”
The crowd’s applause swelled.
Trump reiterated a debunked claim
that he broke up encampments in Washington when he was in the White
House; he lamented seeing them as he returned this week. He called them
an embarrassment, especially when foreign leaders visit. “It leaves such
a bad impression. They go home and say, ‘What kind of country has the
United States turned into?’”
His response: make the homeless disappear.
“Perhaps
some people will not like hearing this, but the only way you’re going
to remove the hundreds of thousands of people, and maybe throughout our
nation millions of people,...is open up large parcels of inexpensive
land in the outer reaches of the cities, bring in medical
professionals…build permanent bathrooms and other facilities, make ‘em
good, make ‘em hard, but build them fast, and build thousands and
thousands of high-quality tents, which can be done in one day. One day.
You have to move people out.”
People cheered.
“Some people say, ‘Well, that’s horrible,’ but no, what’s horrible is what’s happening now,” he said.
Trump said it would help drive “the ambition of these people” to not be homeless. “I want to save our cities.”
He
may want to, but at a cost that military and security professionals
should consider and talk more about. Each passing day, Trump seems less
likely to win the Republican primary, much less the presidency, without
the support of Murdoch’s newspapers or GOP donors. But Trumpism’s
authoritarian views of federal power, use of troops, and law enforcement
most certainly will live on, whether in the Republicans’ expected
retaking of the House of Representatives in November’s midterm
elections, or in the 2024 primary for the presidency.
It’s not just control of the House that’s on the ballot; it’s control of the U.S. military.