In Washington, D.C., federal troops again patrol the streets. The official reason?
A presidential declaration painting the capital as a hellscape of bloodthirsty criminals and unchecked violence.
The reality?
By the city’s own data, crime is down sharply. This gap between fact and force is where authoritarianism takes root.
Authoritarianism can be effective — at least in the short term. Send in the muscle, overwhelm your targets, and let fear do the rest.
People fall into line, guilty or not.
Hey, it works. Illegal border crossings dropped under Trump. Later, heavily armed federal agents moved through immigrant-heavy Los Angeles neighborhoods in a militarized, publicized, made-for-Hollywood operation.
Who wants to be caught in a militarized sweep?
Especially one that could land you in a Salvadoran prison, an “alligator Alcatraz,” or some other dangerous lockdown, with rights temporarily — or permanently — suspended.
Southern border states may welcome the decline in traffic.
But many have a growing fear the U.S. is sliding toward a police state, driven by the president’s readiness to use military force in civilian spaces.
Masked, often-unidentified Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deepen the anxiety.
It used to be faceless guys in hoodies who were the criminals.
Now, unmarked vans brimming with federal agents pull up and roust people into custody. Rights and norms long thought of as American may be violated but fear still gets the “tough on crime” job done.
Now it’s Washington’s turn.
Donald Trump says he’s taking over the city, citing exploding crime.
But the city’s own numbers tell the opposite story: While crime certainly exists, homicides fell from 274 in 2023 to 187 in 2024, and violent crime is down 26% so far this year.
Things are getting better, not worse — yet here comes a federalized law enforcement surge under direct presidential command to the “rescue.”
And here’s a contrast you can’t ignore: The same city, just four and a half years ago, was in the grip of its most lawless day in memory.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump addressed his “Stop the Steal” rally at 1:10 p.m., telling them, “… if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” A short march later, rioters were smashing Capitol windows.
For 187 minutes, Trump took no real action to stop it — until finally, he told his followers to disperse and go home.
By day’s end, more than 140 officers were injured. Officer Brian Sicknick died the next day after suffering two strokes that the D.C. medical examiner ruled as natural causes, but said were precipitated by the events of the attack; four other officers later died by suicide.
In all, about 1,575 people were charged and roughly 1,270 convicted.
Yet on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump issued sweeping clemency to nearly 1,600 people connected to Jan. 6 — including preemptive clemency for those under active investigation — halting prosecutions and erasing sentences. So much for backing law, order and crime deterrence.
Authoritarianism rarely arrives in one blow. It grows in steps small enough to excuse.
Today it’s federal troops in a city where crime is falling.
Yesterday it was pardons for political allies convicted of attacking the nation’s capital.
Tomorrow it could be federalized policing in any city whose mayor crosses the White House.
That’s how other democracies have eroded — not through a single coup, but through repeated exceptions to the rules, each framed as “necessary.”
Hungary under Viktor Orbán began with selective crackdowns “to fight corruption” before tightening control of courts and media.
Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko started with “temporary” measures to control unrest, then made them permanent.
Russia under Vladimir Putin first targeted “dangerous extremists” before expanding the definition to silence all dissent.
Over time, these targeted crackdowns became the standard way of governing. By the time the public realized the rules had changed, the change was irreversible.
The danger isn’t only what happens to the president’s opponents, the innocent swept up along the way, or our norms of justice.
It’s also the precedent that survives after such leaders are gone. Once the public accepts troops in the streets as a normal answer to political power plays, the tool will be there for anyone in office — regardless of ideology or party.
The issue isn’t about upholding law and order. It’s about power — who wields it, and when. And when that power is applied selectively by a president with authoritarian impulses, the rule of law stops being law at all, becoming instead the president’s personal weapon of manipulation and control.
As strongman-style power is normalized, sooner or later a sweep will drag in someone you care about — maybe even you. And by then, it will be too late to remember that the rule of law was supposed to protect all of us, not just those brandishing the power.
Gary Horton’s “Full Speed to Port!” has appeared in The Signal since 2006. The opinions expressed in his column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Signal or its editorial board.
