Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump deployed 800 National Guard troops to occupy D.C. after declaring a (nonexistent) crime emergency. They don't have formal police powers but they are doing other law-enforcement-type duties, including clearing homeless encampments, guarding national monuments (which haven't been threatened by anyone), and "keeping order." All of this against the express wishes of the elected mayor, Muriel Bowser. However, she has no power to stop any of this.
Trump's stunt has given rise to new calls for making D.C. a state. D.C.'s special status makes it easier for the president to commandeer it. If he tries that with a state, the governor is likely to object and the governor could possibly preempt nationalizing the Guard by activating it himself. Can the president seize an already-activated National Guard? That could ultimately be up to a Supreme Court that generally doesn't like to rule that the feds can take away state powers.
At the very least, the occupation of D.C. will put D.C. statehood on the front burner next time Democrats get the trifecta. Republicans are wildly opposed to it because they know that if D.C. becomes a state, it is almost certain to elect two Black Democrats to the Senate. With the Senate so closely divided all the time, that could be just enough to give the Democrats a slim majority.
Trump has given a hint of what is next. He has talked about Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Oakland as crime-ridden hellholes. He seems like a man with a plan: Occupy large blue cities with substantial Black populations that voted against him and take away their power to police themselves. The idea is to intimidate the people there. If there are protests, which is likely, then he will surely order mass arrests to further intimidate the residents of the occupied cities. His rural base has no idea of what life is like in big cities and no doubt swallows whole his lies about crime running rampant and people afraid to go out on the streets.
Sometimes there is a high-profile shooting in a city and Trump then latches onto that as evidence that he needs to take over, always against the wishes of the mayor and governor. Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD) said: "[The president] is simply using honorable men and women as pawns to distract us from his policies, which continue to drive up unemployment and strip away health care and food assistance from those who need it most." Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) said: "If President Trump wants to help make Chicago safer, he can start by releasing the funds for anti-violence programs that have been critical to our work to drive down crime and violence." (V)