"Time is running out on the American experiment"

 

The deployment of FBI agents and National Guard forces to Washington D.C., and the (temporary) takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department—based on a non-existent dystopian crime epidemic (following the deployment of federal troops to Los Angeles, based on a related lie that illegal immigrants were menacing the city)—signifies we have by any definition attained the status of a police state.

Arriving atop the weight of Donald Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute his opponents—specifically Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Cal.), New York Attorney General Tish James, Judge Hannah Dugan, Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), and former Trump aides Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor—we have crossed a legal Rubicon, one in which federal prosecutors could be refashioning into presidential inquisitors and the military into a roving band of shock troops.

“Trump’s use of the National Guard to subjugate local policing in Washington, D.C., comes straight out of a dictator’s playbook. Trump is preying upon people’s fears to mask another authoritarian power grab,” said Center for American Progress CEO Neera Tanden in a written statement. She stressed:

“Sending troops unnecessarily into an American city is a dangerous attack on the concept of local policing and distracts from the fact that his tariffs are hamstringing our economy and that his Justice Department is refusing to release the Epstein files as he’s long promised.”

Basing such unprecedented action on the blatant lie that crime in D.C. is soaring underscores that our democracy is under assault. To write this off as a “distraction” misses the danger of the moment; the potential for unbridled deployment of the military for domestic policing.

The notion that FBI and National Guard are required to round up fourteen-year-olds is preposterous, but Trump is playing on a well-worn racial stereotype just as he did in his infamous Central Park 5 screed: he is summoning the public to be afraid of young black and brown men.

As Sen. Andy Kim of New Jersey noted, “Trump's federalization of the DC Metro Police Department and deployment of the National Guard is an attempt to gaslight the American people so he can seize more power. It will do nothing to make us safer.”

Other Democrats, including the attorney general of D.C. Brian Schwalb, highlighted the “unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful” nature of the maneuver. Rep. Don Breyer (D-Va.) wrote “Donald Trump has personally incited more crime in Washington DC than perhaps anyone else living. . . . Trump’s announcement is an unserious and unacceptable publicity stunt.”

Unfortunately, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s mealy-mouthed response failed to demonstrate the leadership D.C. residents need. Worse, she met with Attorney General Pam Bondi, who praised the meeting as being “productive.” Legitimizing and earning kudos from a wannabe autocrat are inimical to preserving democracy and the rule of law.

Negotiating and complying with tyranny is never an acceptable option. It seems D.C. will have to rely on other voices to protect the city; pro-democracy voices beyond the limits of the capital must carry the torch for democracy and the rule of law to prevent the militarization of policing across the country. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported:

Several Democrats have said they plan to introduce bills or legislation to address Trump’s announcement. Representative Jamie Raskin, whose Maryland district includes Washington suburbs, said he would introduce a resolution to “reverse this plainly ridiculous state of local emergency” and restore local control to D.C.’s government.

Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s non voting delegate, and Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said they would reintroduce bills that would repeal the president’s authority to take temporary control of the D.C. police and give the city’s mayor authority over the D.C. National Guard.

We should take no solace from realization that Trump has not truly “federalized” D.C. (as home rule is protected by statute). Nor has he actually indicted his enemies (yet). But there is no guarantee he will stop short of these steps. Indeed, in the case of D.C., Trump specified this is a test case for other Democratic-run cities (including Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, and Baltimore) with Black mayors and a significant percentage of minority residents.

Even if the deployed forces do nothing, Trump’s D.C. move, including takeover of a municipal police department, is dangerous, threatens the rule of law, and bring us closer to a police state in which the military act on false pretenses to intimidate Trump’s foes. 

In flexing his muscles in defiance of facts (Who ya going to believe: me or the FBI’s crime statistics?), democratic norms, and the law (e.g., pursuing frivolous vengeance against his opponents) he is telling us he will not be constrained by reality or law, . He will make up facts at will and defy all restraints. In other words, he will be the dictator he promised to be on Day One, and has aspiring to be ever since.

Furthermore, as Trump has destroyed the Department of Justice’s credibility and integrity; its lawyers are now compelled to make junk arguments in defense of illegal actions and sidestep, if not violate, court orders. Likewise, he has sullied the image of the FBI, which is dragooned into serving as his Praetorian Guard and forced to disregard their oaths of office and professional obligations.

The Contrarian contributor Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent, notes that honorable, decent, competent FBI employees already have been fired or left. She writes:

For the last one hundred years, we have trusted the Justice Department and the President to prioritize these values, along with adherence to the rule of law, in lieu of enshrining them into law (Director Webster apparently tried to get Congress to establish a legislative charter for the Bureau, to no avail). Well, we now have a director who doesn’t value these things. And we have a President who doesn’t either.

The FBI, she argues, is “morphing, 117 years later, into the kind of nightmare national police force that Congress and the public feared the Bureau could turn into when it was first created in 1908, and which Director Webster and every other director made their mission not to let happen.”

Trump’s rule of terror, lawlessness, lies, and self-enrichment is only gaining steam. He does not bother to disguise his actions; the MAGA party does not dare cross him. With each passing day, we are getting closer and closer to embodying the characteristics of an authoritarian thugocracy.

The only solution is fighting everything, everywhere, all at once. Litigation may not always succeed, but both lawsuits, political action, and community engagement are essential to peaceful, mass organization and an overwhelming defeat for MAGA in 2026. Time is running out on the American experiment.

-Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian